George Washington; an historical biography

m

•T

•

(LIBRARY ^
UNI. . N.UV OF
CALIIURWA
SAN DIEGO J

2Dfje Htoersfoe ILtbrarp for looting people

NUMBER 2

GEORGE WASHINGTON

BY HORACE E. SCUDDER

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

AN HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY

BY

HORACE E. SCUDDER

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
(C&e Rtoetfi&e #rerf& CambriDge
1880

15311

Copyright, 1886,
Br THE CENTDKY COMPANY.

Copyright, 1889,
BY HORACE E. SCUDDER.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge :
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co.

CONTENTS.

I. OLD VIRGINIA 7

II. A VIRGINIA PLANTATION 14

III. THE BOYHOOD OF WASHINGTON . . . .21

IV. SCHOOL-DAYS 29

V. MOUNT VERNON AND BELVOIR . . . .37

VI. THE YOUNG SURVEYOR 45

VII. THE OHIO COMPANY 52

VIII. MAJOR WASHINGTON 60

IX. FORT DUQUESNE AND FORT NECESSITY . , 70

X. A TERRIBLE LESSON IN WAR .... 80

XI. COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE VIRGINIA FORCES 95

XII. WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON . . , 107

XIII. A VIRGINIA BURGESS 119

XIV. THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS .... 131

XV. UNDER THE OLD ELM 144

XVI. LEADING THE ARMY ...... 156

XVII. AT VALLEY FORGE 170

XVIII. THE CONWAY CABAL 178

XIX. MONMOUTH 187

XX. THE LAST CAMPAIGN 194

XXI. WASHINGTON RESIGNS HIS COMMISSION . . 203
XXII. MR. WASHINGTON 212

XXIII. CALLED TO THE HELM 219

XXIV. PRESIDENT WASHINGTON 226

XXV. THE FAREWELL . 242

GEOEGE WASHINGTON.

AN HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER I.

OLD VIRGINIA.

IN 1732, when people spoke of Virginia, they
meant commonly so much of the present State as
lies between Chesapeake Bay and the Blue Ridge
Mountains. In the valley of the Shenandoah
River, just beyond the first range of mountains,
there were a few families, chiefly Irish and Ger-
man, who had made their way southward from
Pennsylvania ; the governor of Virginia, too, was
at this time engaged in planting a colony of Ger-
mans in the valley. Still farther to the west-
ward were a few bold pioneers, who built their
log-cabins in the wilderness and lived by hunting
and fishing. No one knew how far Virginia
stretched ; the old charters from the king had
talked vaguely about the South Sea, meaning by
that the Pacific Ocean ; but the country beyond the
mountains had never been surveyed, and scarcely
even explored. The people who called themselves

8 GEORGE WASU1NGTOX.

Virginians looked upon those who lived beyond
the Blue Ridge very much as nowadays persons
on the Atlantic coast look upon those who settle
in Dakota or Montana.

Down from these mountains came the streams
which swelled into rivers, — the Potomac, the Rap-
pahannock, the York, and the James, with their
countless branches and runs and creeks. Look at
any map of eastern Virginia and see what a long
coast line it has, what arms of the sea stretch in-
land, what rivers come down to meet the sea, and
what a net-work of water-ways spreads over the
whole country. You would say that the people
living there must be skillful fishermen and sail-
ors, that thriving seaport towns would be scattered
along the coast and rivers, and that there would
be great shipyards for the building of all kinds of
vessels.

But in 1732 there were no large towns in Vir-
ginia— there were scarcely any towns at all.
Each county had a county seat, where were a
court-house and a prison, and an inn for the con-
venience of those who had business in court ;
usually there was a church, and sometimes a small
country store; but there were no other houses, and
often the place was in the middle of the woods.
The capital of Virginia — Williamsburg — had
less than two hundred houses ; and Norfolk, the
largest town, at the head of a noble harbor, had
a population of five thousand or so. A few fish

OLD VIRGINIA. 9

were caught in the rivers or on the coast, but
there was no business of fishing ; a few boats plied
from place to place, but there was no ship-build-
ing ; and the ships which sailed into the harbors
and up the rivers were owned elsewhere, and came
from England or the other American colonies.
There were no manufactures, and scarcely a
trained mechanic in the whole colony. Yet Vir-
ginia was the most populous, and, some thought,
the richest of the British colonies in America.
In 1732 she had half a million inhabitants, —
more than twice as many as New York had at
that time.

Where were the people, then, and what were
they doing? They were living in the country,
and raising tobacco. More than a hundred years
before, the first Englishmen who had come to Vir-
ginia had found that they could raise nothing
which was so much wanted in England, and could
bring them so much money, as tobacco. Besides,
these Englishmen had not been mechanics or fish-
ermen or sailors in England ; they had for the
most part been used to living on farms. So they
fell at once to planting tobacco, and they could
not raise enough to satisfy people in England and
other parts of the Old World. All the fine gen-
tlemen took to smoking ; it was something new
and fashionable ; and, I suppose, a great many
puffed away at their pipes who wondered what
the pleasure was, and sometimes wished the weed

10 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

had never been discovered. The king of Eng-
land did not like it, and he wrote a book to dis-
suade people from the use of tobacco ; but every
one went on smoking Virginia tobacco as before.

The company which sent colonists to Virginia
promised fifty acres to any one who would clear
the land and settle upon it ; for a small sum of
money one might buy a hundred acres ; and if
any one did some special service to the colony, he
might receive a gift of as much as two thousand
acres. Now, in England, to own land was to be
thought much of. Only noblemen or country gen-
tlemen could boast of having two thousand or a
hundred or even fifty acres. So the Englishmen
who came to Virginia, where land was plenty,
were all eager to own great estates.

To carry on such estates, and especially to raise
tobacco, required many laborers. It was not
easy for the Virginia land-owners to bring these
from English farms. They could not be spared
by the farmers there, and besides, such laborers
were for the most part men and women who had
never been beyond the villages where they had
been born and had hardly ever heard of America.
They lived, father and son, in the same place,
and knew little about any other. But in London
and other cities of England there were, at the
time when the Virginia colony was formed, many
poor people who had no work and nothing to live
on. If these people could be sent to America,

OLD VIRGINIA. 11

not only would the cities be rid of them, but the
gentlemen in the new country would have laborers
to cut down trees, clear the fields, and plant to-
bacco.

Accordingly, many of these idle and poor people
were sent over as servants. The Virginia plant-
ers paid their passage, sheltered, fed, and clothed
them, and in return had the use of their labor for
a certain number of years. The plan did not work
very well, however. Often these " indentured ser-
vants," as they were called, were idle and unwil-
ling to work — that was one reason that they had
been poor in London. Even when they did work,
they were only " bound " for a certain length of
time. After they had served their time, they
were free. Then they sometimes cleared farms
for themselves ; but very often they led lazy, vi-
cious lives, and were a trouble and vexation to
the neighborhood.

It seemed to these Virginia planters that there
was a better way. In 1619, a year before the
Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, a Dutch captain
brought up the James. River twenty blacks whom
he had captured on the coast of Africa. He
offered to sell these to the planters, and they
bought them. No one saw anything out of the
way in this. It was no new thing to own slaves.
There were slaves in the West India Islands, and
in the countries of Europe. Indians when cap-
tured in war were sold into slavery. For that

12 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

matter, white men had been made slaves. The dif-
ference between these blacks and the indentured
servants was that the planter who paid the Dutch
captain for a black man had the use of him all
his lifetime, but if he bought from an English
captain the services of an indentured white man,
he could only have those services for a few months
or years. It certainly was much more convenient
to have an African slave.

There were not many of these slaves at first.
An occasional shipload was brought from Africa,
but it was not until after fifty years that negroes
made any considerable part of the population.
They had families, and all the children were slaves
like their parents. More were bought of captains
who made a business of going to Africa to trade
for slaves, just as they might have gone to the
East Indies for spices. The plantations were
growing larger, and the more slaves a man had,
the more tobacco he could raise ; the more tobacco
he could raise, the richer he was. Until long
after the year 1732, the people in Virginia were
wont to reckon the cost of things, not by pounds,
shillings, and pence — the English currency, —
but by pounds of tobacco — the Virginia currency.
The salaries of the clergy were paid in tobacco ;
so were all their fees for christening, marrying,
and burying. Taxes were paid and accounts were
kept in tobacco. At a few points there were
houses to which planters brought their tobacco,

OLD VIRGINIA. 13

and these warehouses served the purpose of banks.
A planter stored his tobacco and received a cer-
tificate of deposit. This certificate he could use
instead of a check on a bank.

The small planters who lived high up the rivers,
beyond the point where vessels could go, floated
their tobacco in boats down to one of the ware-
houses, where it made part of the cargo of some
ship sailing for England. But the largest part of
this produce was shipped directly from the great
plantations. Each of these had its own store-
house and its own wharf. The Virginia planter
was his own shipping merchant. He had his
agent in London. Once a year, a vessel would
make its way up the river to his wharf. It
brought whatever he or his family needed. He
had sent to his agent to buy clothes, furniture,
table-linen, tools, medicine, spices, foreign fruits,
harnesses, carriages, cutlery, wines, books, pic-
tures, — there was scarcely an article used in his
house or on his plantation for which he did not
send to London. Then in return he helped to
load the vessel, and he had just one article with
which to make up the cargo — tobacco. Now and
then tar, pitch, and turpentine were sent from
some districts, but the Virginia planter rarely sent
anything but tobacco to England in return for
what he received.

CHAPTER II.

A VIRGINIA PLANTATION.

LET us visit in imagination one of these Vir-
ginia plantations, such as were to be found in
1732, and see what sort of life was led upon it.

To reach the plantation, one is likely to ride
for some distance through the woods. The coun-
try is not yet cleared of the forest, and each
planter, as he adds one tobacco-field to another, has
to make inroads upon the great trees. Coming
nearer, one rides past tracts where the underbrush
is gone, but tall, gaunt trees stand, bearing no
foliage and looking ready to fall to the ground.
They have been girdled, that is, have had a gash
cut around the trunk, through the bark, quite
into the wood ; thus the sap cannot flow, and the
tree rots away, falling finally with a great crash.
The luckless traveler sometimes finds his way
stopped by one of these trees fallen across the
road. By the border of these tracts are Virginia
rail-fences, eight or ten feet in height, which zig-
zag in a curious fashion, — the rails, twelve feet
or so in length, not running into posts, but rest-
ing on one another at the ends, like a succession
of W's. When the new land is wholly cleared

A VIRGINIA PLANTATION. 15

of trees, these fences can be removed, stick by
stick, and set farther back. No post-holes have to
be dug, nor posts driven in.

Now the tobacco-fields come into view. If the
plant is growing, one sees long rows of hillocks
kept free from weeds, and the plant well bunched
at the top, for the lower leaves and suckers are
pruned once a week ; and as there is a worm which
infests the tobacco, and has to be picked off and
killed, during the growth of the plant all hands
are kept busy in the field.

I have said that there were scarcely any towns
or villages in Virginia, so one might fancy there
was some mistake; for what means this great
collection of houses ? Surely here is a village ;
but look closer. There are no stores or shops or
churches or schoolhouses. Rising above the rest
is one principal building. It is the planter's own
house, which very likely is surrounded by beauti-
ful trees and gardens. At a little distance are
the cabins of the negroes, and the gaping wooden
tobacco-houses, in which the tobacco is drying,
hung upon poles and well sunned and aired, for
the houses are built so as to allow plenty of ven-
tilation and sunlight. The cabins of the negroes
are low wooden buildings, the chinks filled in
with clay. Many of them have kitchen gardens
about them, for the slaves are allowed plots of
ground on which to raise corn and melons and
small vegetables for their own use. The planter's

16 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

house is sometimes of wood, sometimes of brick,
and sometimes of stone. The one feature, how-
ever, which always strikes a stranger is the great
outside chimney, — usually there is one at each
end of the house, — a huge pile of brick or stone,
rising above the ridge-pole. Very often, too, there
are wide verandas and porches. In this climate,
where there are no freezing-cold winters, it is not
necessary to build chimneys in the middle of the
house, where the warmth of the bricks may serve
to temper the air of all the rooms. Moreover, in
the warm summers it is well to keep the heat of
the cooking away from the house, so the meals
are prepared in kitchens built separate from the
main house. Inside the great house, one finds
one's self in large, airy rooms and halls ; wide
fireplaces hold blazing fires in the cool days, and
in the summer there is a passage of air on all
sides. Sometimes the rooms are lathed and plas-
tered, but often they are sheathed in the cedar
and other woods which grow abundantly in the
country. There is little of that spruce tidiness
on which a New England housekeeper prides her-
self. The house servants are lazy and good-
natured, and the people live in a generous fashion,
careless of waste, and indifferent to orderly ways.
The planter has no market near by to which he
can go for his food ; accordingly he has his own
smokehouse, in which he cures his ham and smokes
his beef; he has outhouses and barns scattered

A VIRGINIA PLANTATION. 17

about, where he stores his provisions ; and down
where the brook runs is the spring-house, built
over the running stream. Here the milk and
butter and eggs are kept standing in buckets in
the cool fresh water. The table is an abundant
but coarse one. The woods supply game, and the
planter has herds of cattle. But he raises few veg-
etables and little wheat. The English ship brings
him wines and liquors, which are freely used,
and now and then one of his negro women has a
genius for cooking and can make dainty dishes.
The living, however, is rather profuse than nice.

It fits the rude, out-of-door life of the men.
The master of the house spends much of his time
in the saddle. He prides himself on his horses,
and keeps his stables well filled. It is his chief
business to look after his estate. He has, to be
sure, an overseer, or steward, who takes his orders
and sees that the various gangs of negroes do
their required work ; but the master, if he would
succeed, himself must visit the several parts of
his plantation and make sure that all goes on
smoothly. He must have an eye to his stock, for
very likely he has blooded horses ; he must see
that the tobacco is well harvested ; he must ride
to the new field which is being cleared, and in-
spect his fences. There is enough in all this to
keep the planter in his saddle all day long.

With horses in the stable and dogs in the ken-
nel, the Virginian is a great hunter. He lives in

18 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

a country where he can chase not only the fox,
but the bear and the wild cat. With other plant-
ers he rides after the hounds ; and they try their
horses on the race-course. The man who can ride
the hardest, shoot the surest, lift the heaviest
weight, run, leap, and wrestle beyond his fellows,
is the most admired.

With so, free and independent a life, the Vir-
ginian is a generous man, who is hospitable both
to his neighbors and to strangers. If he hears of
any one traveling through the country and putting
up at one of the uncomfortable little inns, he
sends for him to come to his house, without wait-
ing for a letter of introduction. He entertains
his neighbors, and there are frequent gatherings
of old and young for dancing and merry-making.
The tobacco crop varies, and the price of it is
constantly changing. Thus the planter can never
reckon with confidence upon his income, and,
with his reckless style of living, he is often in
debt. He despises small economies, and looks
down upon the merchant and trader, whose busi-
ness it is to watch closely what they receive and
what they pay out.

The Virginian does not often go far from his
plantation. His chief journey is to the capital,
at Williamsburg, where he goes when the colonial
House of Burgesses is in session. Then he gets
out his great yellow coach, and his family drive
over rough roads and come upon other planters

A VIRGINIA PLANTATION. 19

and their families driving through the woods in
the same direction. At the capital, during the
session, are held balls and other grand entertain-
ments, and the men discuss the affairs of the col-
ony. They honor the king, and pay their taxes
without much grumbling, but they are used to
managing affairs in Virginia without a great deal
of interference from England. The new country
helps to make them independent ; they are far
away from King and Parliament and Court ; they
are used to rule ; and in the defense of their
country against Indians and French they have
been good soldiers.

But what is the Virginian lady doing all this
time ? It is not hard to see, when one thinks of
the great house, the many servants, the hospitality
shown to strangers, and the absence of towns.
She is a home-keeping body. She has to provide
for her household, and as she cannot go shopping
to town, she must keep abundant stores of every-
thing she needs. Often she must teach her chil-
dren, for very likely there is no school near to
which she can send them. She must oversee and
train her servants, and set one to spinning, an-
other to mending, and another to sewing ; but
she does not find it easy to have nice work done ;
her black slaves are seldom skilled, and she has
to send to England for her finer garments. There
is no doctor near at hand, and she must try her
hand at prescribing for the sick on the plantation,
and must nurse white and black.

20 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

In truth, the Virginian lady saves the Old Do-
minion. If it were not for her, the men would
be rude and barbarous ; but they treat her with
unfailing respect, and she gives the gentleness and
grace which they would quickly forget. Early
in this century some one went to visit an old Vir-
ginian lady, and she has left this description of
what she saw : — ,

" On one side sits the chambermaid with her
knitting ; on the other, a little colored pet learn-
ing to sew ; an old decent woman is there with
her table and shears, cutting out the negroes' win-
ter clothes ; while the old lady directs them all,
incessantly knitting herself. She points out to
me several pair of nice colored stockings and
gloves she has just finished, and presents me with
a pair half-done, which she begs I will finish and
wear for her sake."

CHAPTER III.

THE BOYHOOD OF WASHINGTON.

THE old lady thus described was the widow of
George Washington, and so little had life in Vir-
ginia then changed from what it had been in 1732,
that the description might easily stand for a por-
trait of George Washington's mother. Of his
father he remembered little, for though his mother
lived long after he had grown up and was famous,
his father died when the boy was eleven years old.

It was near the shore of the Potomac River,
between Pope's Creek and Bridge's Creek, that
Augustine Washington lived when his son George
was born. The land had been in the family ever
since Augustine's grandfather, John Washington,
had bought it, when he came over from England
in 1657. John Washington was a soldier and a
public-spirited man, and so the parish in which
he lived — for Virginia was divided into parishes
as some other colonies into townships — was named
Washington. It is a quiet neighborhood ; not a
sign remains of the old house, and the only mark
of the place is a stone slab, broken and overgrown
with weeds and brambles, which lies on a bed of

22 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

bricks taken fi'om the remnants of the old chim-
ney of the house. It bears the inscription : —

Here

The nth of February, 1732 (old style)

George Waftiington

was born

The English had lately agreed to use the calen-
dar of Pope Gregory, which added eleven days to
the reckoning, but people still used the old style
as well as the new. By the new style, the birth-
day was February 22, and that is the day which
is now observed. The family into which the child
was born consisted of the father and mother, Au-
gustine and Mary Washington, and two boys,
Lawrence and Augustine. These were sons of
Augustine Washington by a former wife who had
died four years before. George Washington
was the eldest of the children of Augustine and
Mary Washington ; he had afterward three broth-
ers and two sisters, but one of the sisters died in
infancy.

It was not long after George Washington's
birth that the house in which he was born was
burned, and as his father was at the time espe-
cially interested in some iron-works at a distance,
it was determined not to rebuild upon the lonely
place. Accordingly Augustine Washington re-
moved his family to a place which he owned in
Stafford County, on the banks of the Rappahan-

THE BOYHOOD OF WASHINGTON. 23

nock River opposite Fredericksburg. The house
is not now standing, but a picture was made of it
before it was destroyed. It was, like many Vir-
ginia houses of the day, divided into four rooms
on a floor, and had great outside chimneys at
either end.

Here George Washington spent his childhood.
He learned to read, write, and cipher at a small
school kept by Hobby, the sexton of the parish
church. Among his playmates was Richard
Henry Lee, who was afterward a famous Virgin-
ian. When the boys grew up, they wrote to each
other of grave matters of war and state, but here
is the beginning of their correspondence, written
when they were nine years old : —

" RICHARD HENRY LEE TO GEORGE WASHINGTON :

" Pa brought me two pretty books full of pictures he
got them in Alexandria they have pictures of dogs and
cats and tigers and elefants and ever so many pretty
things cousin bids me send you one of them it has a
picture of an elefant and a little Indian boy on his
back like uncle jo's sam pa says if I learn my tasks
good he will let uncle jo bring me to see you wjll you
ask your ma to let you come to see me.

" RICHARD HENRY LEE."

" GEORGE WASHINGTON TO RICHARD HENRY LEB ;

" DEAR DICKEY I thank you very much for the
pretty picture-book you gave me. Sam asked me to
show him the pictures and I showed him all the pic-

24 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

tures in it ; and I read to him how the tame elephant
took care of the master's little boy, and put him on his
back and would not let anybody touch his master's lit-
tle son. I can read three or four pages sometimes
without missing a word. Ma says I may go to see you,
and stay all day with you next week if it be not rainy.
She says I may ride my pony Hero if Uncle Ben will
go with me and lead Hero. I have a little piece of
poetry about the picture book you gave me, but I
must n't tell you who wrote the poetry.

" ' G. W.'s compliments to R. H. L.,
And likes his book full well,
Henceforth will count him his friend,
And hopes many happy days he may spend.

" Your good friend,

" GEORGE WASHINGTON.

" I am going to get a whip top soon, and you may
see it and whip it." l

It looks very much, as if Richard Henry sent
his letter off just as it was written. I suspect
that his correspondent's letter was looked over,
corrected, and copied before it was sent. Very
possibly Augustine Washington was absent at
the time on one of his journeys ; but at any rate
the boy owed most of his training to his mother,
for only two years after this his father died, and
he was left to his mother's care.

She was a woman born to command, and since
she was left alone with a family and an estate to
J}. J. Lossing's The Home of Washington.

THE BOYHOOD OF WASHINGTON. 25

care for, she took the reins into her own hands,
and never gave them up to any one else. She
used to drive about in an old-fashioned open
chaise, visiting the various parts of her farm, just
as a planter would do on horseback. The story
is told that she had given an agent directions how
to do a piece of work, and he had seen fit to do it
differently, because he thought his way a better
one. He showed her the improvement.

" And pray," said the lady, " who gave you any
exercise of judgment in the matter ? I command
you, sir ; there is nothing left for you but to
obey."

In those days, more than now, a boy used very
formal language when addressing his mother.
He might love her warmly, but he was expected
to treat her with a great show of respect. When
Washington wrote to his mother, even after he
was of age, he began his letter, " Honored
Madam," and signed it, " Your dutiful son."
This was a part of the manners of the time. It
was like the stiff dress which men wore when they
paid their respects to others ; it was put on for
the occasion, and one would have been thought
very unmannerly who did not make a marked dif-
ference between his every-day dress and that
which he wore when he went into the presence of
his betters. So Washington, when he wrote to
his mother, would not be so rude as to say, " Dear
Mother."

26 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Such habits as this go deeper than mere forms
of speech. I do not suppose that the sons of this
lady feared her, but they stood in awe of her,
which is quite a different thing.

" We were all as mute as mice, when in her
presence," says one of Washington's companions ;
and common report makes her to have been very
much such a woman as her son afterward was a
man.

I think that George Washington owed two
strong traits to his mother, — a governing spirit
and a spirit of order and method. She taught
him many lessons and gave him many rules ; but,
after all, it was her character shaping his which
was most powerful. She taught him to be truth-
ful, but her lessons were not half so forcible as
her own truthfulness.

There is a story told of George Washington's
boyhood — unfortunately there are not many sto-
ries — which is to the point. His father had
taken a great deal of pride in his blooded horses,
and his mother afterward took pains to keep the
stock pure. She had several young horses that
had not yet been broken, and one of them in par-
ticular, a sorrel, was extremely spirited. No one
had been able to do anything with it, and it was
pronounced thoroughly vicious, as people are apt
to pronounce horses which they have not learned
to master. George was determined to ride this
colt, and told his companions that if they would
help him catch it, he would ride and tame it.

THE BOYHOOD OF WASHINGTON. 27

Early in the morning they set out for the pas-
ture, where the boys managed to surround the sor-
rel and then to put a bit into its mouth. Wash-
ington sprang upon its back, the boys dropped the
bridle, and away flew the angry animal. Its
rider at once began to command; the horse re-
sisted, backing about the field, rearing and plung-
ing. The boys became thoroughly alarmed, but
Washington kept his seat, never once losing his
self-control or his mastery of the colt. The strug-
gle was a sharp one ; when suddenly, as if deter-
mined to rid itself of its rider, the creature leaped
into the air with a tremendous bound. It was its
last. The violence burst a blood-vessel, and the
noble horse fell dead.

Before the boys could sufficiently recover to
consider how they should extricate themselves from
the scrape, they were called to breakfast ; and the
mistress of the house, knowing that they had been
in the fields, began to ask after her stock.

" Pray, young gentlemen," said she, " have you
seen my blooded colts in your rambles ? I hope
they are well taken care of. My favorite, I am
told, is as large as his sire."

The boys looked at one another, and no one
liked to speak. Of course the mother repeated
her question.

" The sorrel is dead, madam," said her son.
" I killed him ! "

And then he told the whole story. They say

28 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

that his mother flushed with anger, as her son
often used to, and then, like him, controlled her-
self, and presently said, quietly : —

" It is well ; but while I regret the loss of my
favorite, I rejoice in my son who always speaks
the truth."

The story of Washington's killing the blooded
colt is of a piece with other stories less particular,
which show that he was a very athletic fellow.
Of course, when a boy becomes famous, every one
likes to remember the wonderful things he did be-
fore he was famous ; and Washington's playmates,
when they grew up, used to show the spot by the
Rappahannock, near Fredericksburg, where he
stood and threw a stone to the opposite bank ; and
at the celebrated Natural Bridge, the arch of
which is two hundred feet above the ground, they
always tell the visitor that George Washington
threw a stone in the air the whole height. He un-
doubtedly took part in all the sports which were
the favorites of his country at that time — he
pitched heavy bars, tossed quoits, ran, leaped, and
wrestled ; for he was a powerful, large-limbed
young fellow, and he had a very large and strong
hand.

CHAPTER IV.

SCHOOL-DAYS.

THE story of George "Washington's struggle
with the colt must belong to his older boyhood,
when he was at home on a vacation ; for we have
seen that he had to have his pony led when he was
nine years old ; and after his father's death, which
occurred when he was eleven, he went away to
school. When Augustine Washington died, he
divided his several estates among his children ;
but his widow was to have the oversight of the
portions left to the younger children until they
should come of age. Lawrence Washington re-
ceived an estate called Hunting Creek, located
near a stream of the same name which flowed
into the Potomac ; and Augustine, his brother,
received the old homestead near Bridge's Creek ;
the mother and younger children continued to live
near Fredericksburg.

Both Lawrence and Augustine Washington
married soon after their father's death, and as
there chanced to be a good school near Bridge's
Creek, George Washington now made his home
with his brother Augustine, staying with him till
he was nearly sixteen years old.

30 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

He was to be, like his father, a Virginian
planter ; and I suppose that had something to do
with the kind of training which Mr. Williams, the
schoolmaster at Bridge's Creek, gave him. At
any rate, it is easy to see what he studied. Most
boys' copy-books and exercise-books are early de-
stroyed, but it chances that those of George Wash-
ington have been kept, and they are very interest-
ing. The handwriting in them is the first thing
to be noticed, — round, fair, and bold, the letters
large like the hand that formed them, and the
lines running straight and even. In the arith-
metics and book-keeping manuals which we study
at school, there are printed forms of receipts, bills,
and other ordinary business papers : but in Wash-
ington's school-days, the teacher probably showed
the boys how to draw these up, and gave them,
also, copies of longer papers, like leases, deeds, and
wills. There were few lawyers in the colony, and
every gentleman was expected to know many
forms of documents which in these days are left
to our lawyers.

Washington's exercise-books have many pages
of these forms, written out carefully by the boy.
Sometimes he made ornamental letters, such as
clerks were wont to use in drawing up such pa-
pers. This was not merely exercise in penman-
ship ; it was practice work in all that careful
keeping of accounts and those business methods
which were sure to be needed by one who had to

SCHOOL-DAYS. 31

manage a great plantation. George Washington
was to manage something greater, though he did
not then know it ; and the habits which he formed
at this time were of inestimable value to him in
his manhood.

The manuscript book which contains these exer-
cises has also a list of a hundred and ten " Rules
of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and
Conversation." Probably they were not made up
by the boy, but copied from some book or taken
down from the lips of his mother or teacher.
They sound rather stiff to us, and we should be
likely to think the boy a prig who attempted to be
governed by them ; but it was a common thing in
those days to set such rules before children, and
George Washington, with his liking for regular,
orderly ways — which is evident in his handwrit-
ing — probably used the rules and perhaps com-
mitted them to memory, to secure an even temper
and self-control. Here are a few of them : —

" Every action in company ought to be with
some sign of respect to those present.

" When you meet with one of greater quality
than yourself, stop and retire, especially if it be at
a door or any strait place, to give way for him to
pass.

" They that are in dignity or in office have in
all places precedency ; but whilst they are young,
they ought to respect those that are their equals

32 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

in birth or other qualities, though they have no
public charge.

" Strive not with your superiors in argument,
but always submit your judgment to others with
modesty.

" Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the
disparagement of any.

" Take all admonitions thankfully, in what time
or place soever given ; but afterwards, not being
culpable, take a time or place convenient to let
him know it that gave them.

" Think before you speak ; pronounce not im-
perfectly, nor bring out your words too hastily,
but orderly and distinctly.

" Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.

" Make no show of taking great delight in your
victuals ; feed not with greediness ; cut your bread
with a knife ; lean not on the table ; neither find
fault with what you eat.

" Be not angry at table, whatever happens, and
if you have reason to be so, show it not ; put on a
cheerful countenance, especially if there be stran-
gers, for good humor makes one dish of meat a
feast.

" Let your recreations be manful, not sinful.

" Labor to keep alive in your breast that little
spark of celestial fire called conscience."

These are not unwise rules ; they touch on
things great and small. The difficulty with most

SCHOOL-DA TS. 33

boys would be to follow a hundred and ten of
them. They serve, however, to show what was
the standard of good manners and morals among
those who had the training of George Washington.
But, after all, the best of rules would have done
little with poor stuff ; It was because this boy had
a manly and honorable spirit that he could be
trained in manly and honorable ways. He was a
passionate but not a vicious boy, and so, since his
passion was kept under control, he was all the
stronger for it. The boy that could throw a stone
across the Rappahannock was taught to be gentle,
and not violent ; the tamer of the blooded sorrel
colt controlled himself, and that was the reason
he could control his horse.

With all his strength and agility, George
Washington was a generous and fair-minded boy ;
otherwise he would not have been chosen, as he
often was, to settle the disputes of his companions.
He was a natural leader. In his boyhood there
was plenty of talk of war. What is known as
King George's War had just broken out between
the English and the French ; and there were al-
ways stories of fights with the Indians in the back
settlements. It was natural, therefore, that boys
should play at fighting, and George Washington
had his small military company, which he drilled
and manoeuvred.

Besides, his brother Lawrence had been a sol-

34 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

dier, and he must have heard many tales of war
when he visited him. Thus it came about that he
was for throwing his books aside and entering His
Majesty's service. He was, however, too young
for the army — he was only fifteen ; but Lawrence
Washington encouraged him, and as he knew
many officers in the navy, he had no difficulty in
obtaining for his young brother a warrant as mid-
shipman in the navy.

It is said that the young middy's luggage was
on board a man-of-war anchored in the Potomac,
when Madam Washington, who had all along
been reluctant to have her son go to sea, now de-
clared finally that she could not give her consent
to the scheme. He was still young and at school ;
perhaps, also, this Virginian lady, living in a
country where the people were not much used to
the sea, looked with concern at a profession which
would take her oldest boy into all the perils of the
ocean. The influence which finally decided her
to refuse her consent is said to have been this
letter, which she received from her brother, then
in England : —

" I understand that you are advised, and have some
thoughts of putting your son George to sea. I think
he had better be put apprentice to a tinker, for a com-
mon sailor before the mast has by no means the com-
mon liberty of the subject ; for they will press him from
a ship where he has fifty shillings a month, and make
him take twenty-three, and cut and slash, and use him

SCHOOL-DAYS. 35

like a negro, or rather like a dog. And, as to any con-
siderable preferment in the navy, it is not to be ex-
pected, as there are always so many gaping for it here
who have interest, and he has none. And if he should
get to be master of a Virginia ship (which is very diffi-
cult to do), a planter that has three or four hundred
acres of land, and three or four slaves, if he be indus-
trious, may live more comfortably, and leave his family
in better bread, than such a master of a ship can."

It seems possible from this letter that the plan
was to put George into the navy that he might come
to command a merchant ship ; but however that
may be, the plan was given up, and the boy went
back to school for another year. During that
time he applied himself especially to the study of
surveying. In a country of great estates, and
with a new, almost unexplored territory coming
into the hands of planters, surveying was a very
important occupation. George Washington, with
his love of exactness and regularity, his orderly
ways and his liking for outdoor life, was greatly
attracted by the art. Five or six years must
elapse before he could come into possession of the
property which his father had left him ; his
mother was living on it and managing it. Mean-
while, the work of surveying land would give him
plenty of occupation, and bring him in money; so
he studied geometry and trigonometry ; he made
calculations, and he surveyed all the fields about
the school-house, plotting them and setting down
everything with great exactness.

36 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

I wonder if Ms sudden diligence in study and
outdoor work was due at all to an affair which
happened about this time. He was a tall, large-
limbed, shy boy of fifteen when he fell in love
with a girl whom he seems to have met when liv-
ing with his brother Augustine. He calls her, in.
one of his letters afterward, a " lowland beauty,"
and tradition makes her to have been a Miss
Grimes, who later married, and was the mother of
one of the young soldiers who served under Wash-
ington in the War for Independence. Whatever
may have been the exact reason that his love af-
fair did not prosper — whether he was too shy to
make his mind known, or so silent as not to show
himself to advantage, or so discreet with grave
demeanor as to hold himself too long in reserve, it
is impossible now to say ; but I suspect that one
effect was to make him work the harder. Sensi-
ble people do not expect boys of fifteen to be
playing the. lover; and George Washington was
old for his years, and not likely to appear in the
role of a spooney.

CHAPTER V.

MOUNT VERNON AND BELVOIB.

ALTHOUGH, after his father's death, George
Washington went to live with his brother Augus-
tine for the sake of going to Mr. Williams's school,
he was especially under the care of his eldest
brother. Lawrence Washington, like other oldest
sons of Virginia planters, was sent to England to
be educated. After his return to America, there
was war between England and Spain, and Ad-
miral Vernon of the English navy captured one
of the Spanish towns in the West Indies. The
people in the American colonies looked upon the
West Indies somewhat differently from the way
in which we regard them at present. Not only
were the islands on the map of America, but like
the colonies, some of them were a part of the
British possessions. A brisk trade was kept up
between them and the mainland ; and indeed,
the Bermudas were once within the bounds of
Virginia.

So, when Admiral Vernon needed reenforce-
ments, he very naturally looked to the colonies
close at hand. A regiment was to be raised and
sent out to Jamaica as part of the British forces.

38 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Lawrence Washington, who was a spirited young
fellow, obtained a commission as captain in a
company of this regiment, and went to the West
Indies, where he fought bravely in the engage-
ments which followed. Whe"h the war was over
he returned to Virginia, so in love with his new
profession that he determined to go to England,
with the regiment to which his company was at-
tached, and to continue as a soldier in His Majes-
ty's service.

Just then there happened two events which
changed his plans and perhaps prevented him from
some day fighting against an army commanded by
his younger brother. He fell in love with Anne
Fairfax, and before they were married his father
died. This left bis mother alone with the care of
a young family, and made him also at once the
owner of a larger estate. His father, as I have
said, bequeathed to him Hunting Creek, and
there, after his marriage, he went to live, as a
planter, like his father before him. For the time,
at any rate, he laid aside his sword, but he kept
up his friendship with officers of the army and the
navy ; and out of admiration for the admiral un-
der whom he had served, he changed the name of
his estate from Hunting Creek to Mount Vernon.

The house which Lawrence Washington built
was after the pattern of many Virginian houses of
the day, — two stories in height, with a porch run-
ning along the front, but with its two chimneys,

MOUNT VERNON AND BELVOIR. 39

one at each end, built inside instead of outside.
Possibly this was a notion which Lawrence Wash-
ington brought with him from England ; perhaps
he did it to please his English bride. The site
which he chose was a pleasant one, upon a swell-
ing ridge, wooded in many places, and high above
the Potomac, which swept in great curves above
and below, almost as far as the eye could see.
Beyond, on the other side, were the Maryland
fields and woods.

A few miles below Mount Vernon was another
plantation, named Belvoir, and it was here that
William Fairfax lived, whose daughter Anne had
married Lawrence Washington. Fairfax also had
been an officer in the English army, and at one
time had been governor of one of the Bahama Isl-
ands. Now he had settled in Virginia, where his
family had large landed possessions.

He was a man of education and wealth, and he
had been accustomed to plenty of society. He
had no mind to bury himself in the backwoods of
Virginia, and with his grown-up sons and daugh-
ters about him, he made his house the centre of
gayety. It was more richly furnished than most
of the houses of the Virginia planters. The floors
were covered with carpets, a great luxury in those
days ; the rooms were lighted with wax candles ;
and he had costly wines in his cellars. Servants
in livery moved about to wait on the guests, and
Virginia gentlemen and ladies flocked to Belvoir.

40 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

The master of the house was an officer of the
king, for he was collector of customs for the col-
ony and president of the governor's council.
British men-of-war sailed up the Potomac and an-
chored in the stream, and the officers came ashore
to be entertained by the Honorable William Fair-
fax.

The nearness of Mount Vernon and the close
connection between the two families led to con-
stant passage between the places. The guests of
one were the guests of the other, and George
Washington, coming to visit his brother Law-
rence, was made at home at Belvoir also. He was
a reserved, shy, awkward schoolboy. He was
only fifteen when he was thrown into the gay
society there, but he was tall, large-limbed, and
altogether much older and graver than his years
would seem to indicate. He took his place among
the men in sports and hunting, and though he was
silent and not very lively in his manner, there was
something in his serious, strong face which made
him a favorite among the ladies.

He met at Belvoir William Fairfax's son,
George William, who had recently come home
from England, and was just married. He was
six years older than George Washington, but that
did not prevent them from striking up a warm
friendship, which continued through life. The
young bride had a sister with her, and this lively
girl, Miss Gary, teased and played with the big,

MOUNT VERNON AND BELVOIR. 41

overgrown schoolboy. I clo not believe he told her
what he wrote to one of his boy friends, — that he
would have passed his time very pleasantly if all
this merriment and young society had not kept
him constantly thinking of his " lowland beauty,"
and wishing himself with her !

But his most notable friend was Thomas, sixth
Lord Fairfax, who was at this time staying at
Belvoir.1 He had been a brilliant young man, of
university education, an officer in a famous regi-
ment, and at home in the fashionable and literary
world of London. But he had suffered two terri-
ble disappointments. His mother and his grand-
mother, when he was a boy, had so misused the
property which descended to him from the Fair-
faxes that when he came of age it had been
largely lost. Then, later on, just as he was about
to be married to a fine lady, she discovered that
she could have a duke instead, and so broke the
engagement and threw Lord Fairfax aside.

It chanced that his mother had all this while
an immense property in Virginia, nearly a fifth of
the present State, which the good-natured King
Charles the Second had given to her. This was
now Lord Fairfax's, and he had appointed his
cousin, William Fairfax, his agent to look after it.
So, when he found all London pitying him or

1 He was of the family of the famous Thomas, third Lord Fair-
fax, who lived in Cromwell's day, and was the head of that
house of fighters who took first the side of Parliament and after-
ward the side of the King.

42 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

smiling at him behind his back, he left England
to visit his American estate. That had occurred
eight years before George Washington's visit to
Belvoir. And now Lord Fairfax was back again,
for his taste of Virginian life had so charmed him
that he had determined to turn his back on Lon-
don and plunge again into the wilderness of the
New World.

He was at this time nearly sixty years of age,
gaunt and grizzled in appearance, and eccentric in
many of his ways ; but people generally laid that
to the disappointments which he had met. He
was the great man at Belvoir ; the younger people
looked with admiration upon the fine- mannered
gentleman who had been at court, who knew
Steele and Addison and other men of letters, and
had now come out into the backwoods to live upon
his vast estate, the greatest in all Virginia.

His lordship, meanwhile, cared little for the gay
society which gathered at Belvoir ; he was courtly
to the ladies but they saw little of him. He liked
best the free, out-of-doors life in the woods and
the excitement of the hunt. It was this that had
pleased him when he first visited Virginia, and
that now had brought him back for the rest of his
life. It was not strange, therefore, that a friend-
ship should spring up between him and the tall,
grave lad, who was so strong in limb, who sat his
horse so firmly and rode after the hounds so well.
They hunted together, and the older man came to

MOUNT VERNON AND BELVOIR. 43

know familiarly and like the strong young Ameri-
can, George Washington.

What if, in the still night, as they sat over their
camp fire, the shy boy had told his gaunt, grizzled
friend the secret of the trouble which kept him
constrained and silent in the midst of the bright
company at Belvoir ! I fancy this same friend,
schooled in Old World experiences and disap-
pointments, knew how to receive this fresh con-
fidence.

Out of this friendship came a very practical ad-
vantage. Neither Lord Fairfax nor his cousin
William knew the bounds and extent of the lands
beyond the Blue Ridge, which formed an impor-
tant part of his lordship's domain. Moreover,
rumors came that persons from the northward had
found out the value of these lands, and that one
and another had settled upon them without asking
leave or troubling themselves about Lord Fairfax's
title. At that time the government had done very
little toward surveying the country which lay be-
yond the borders of population. It was left to any
one who claimed such land to find out exactly
where it was, and of what it consisted.

Lord Fairfax therefore determined to have his
property surveyed, and he gave the commission to
his young friend George Washington, who had
shown not only that he knew how to do the tech-
nical work, but that he had those qualities of
courage, endurance, and perseverance which were

44 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

necessary. The young surveyor had just passed
his sixteenth birthday, but, as I have said, he was
so serious and self-possessed that his companions
did not treat him as a real boy. He did not go
alone, for his friend George William Fairfax went
with him. As the older of the two, and bearing
the name of Fairfax, he was the head of the ex-
pedition, but the special work of surveying was to
be done by George Washington.

CHAPTER VI.

THE YOUNG SURVEYOR.

IT was in March, 1748, just a month after
George Washington was sixteen years old, that
the two young men set out on their errand. They
were only absent four or five weeks, but it was a
sudden and rough initiation into hard life. They
were mounted, and crossed the Blue Ridge by
Ashby's Gap, entering the Shenandoah Valley and
making their first important halt at a spot known
as Lord Fairfax's Quarters. The term " quar-
ters " was usually applied at that time to the part
of a plantation where the negro slaves lived.
Here, in a lonely region near the river, about
twelve miles south of the present town of Win-
chester, Lord Fairfax's overseer had charge of a
number of slaves who were cultivating the ground.

The next day after reaching this place, the
young surveyor and his companion sent their bag-
gage forward to a Captain Kite's, and followed
more slowly, working as they went at their task
of laying off land. At the end of a hard day they
had supper, and were ready for bed. As young
gentlemen, they were shown into a chamber, and

46 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Washington, who had known nothing of frontier
life, proceeded as at home. He stripped himself
very orderly, he says in the diary which he kept,
and went to bed. What was his dismay, instead
of finding a comfortable bed like that to which he
was used, to discover nothing but a little dirty
straw, " without sheet or anything else, but only
one threadbare blanket, with double its weight of
vermin." He was glad to be out of it, and to
dress himself and sleep in his clothes like his com-
panions. After that, he knew better how to man-
age, and lay wrapped before the fire, especially
glad when the fire was out-of-doors and the blue
sky overhead formed the counterpane of his bed.

The party followed the Shenandoah to its junc-
tion with the Potomac, and then ascended that
river and went some seventy miles up the South
Branch, returning over the mountains. They
were hard at work at the business of surveying,
but had plenty of adventure besides. They
camped out in the midst of wild storms ; they
swam their horses over swollen streams; they shot
deer and wild turkeys ; they visited one of His
Majesty's justices of the peace, as Washington
takes pains to note. He invited them to supper,
but expected them to eat it with their hunting-
knives, for he had neither knife nor fork on his
table ; and when they were near no house they
prepared their own suppers, using forked sticks
for spits, and chips for plates.

THE YOUNG SURVEYOR. 47

At one place they had the good luck to be on
hand when thirty Indians who had been on the
war-path came in. " We had some liquor with
us," Washington says, " of which we gave them a
part. This elevating their spirits, put them in
the humor of dancing." So they had a grand
war-dance, to the music of a native band which
consisted of two pieces, — a pot half full of water,
over which a deer-skin was stretched, and a gourd
with some shot in it used as a rattle.

This month of roughing it was a novelty to the
young Virginian. He was used to living with
gentlemen, and he shrank a little from the dis-
comforts which he met. He saw the rude life of
the new settlers, and heard them jabbering in the
German tongue, which he could not understand.
It was a stormy, cold month, one of the hardest of
the year in which to lead an outdoor life. Still,
he was earning his living, and that made it toler-
able. He was paid according to the amount of
work he did, and sometimes he was able to earn
as much as twenty dollars in a day.

Washington kept a brief diary while he was on
the excursion, and very likely he showed it to
Lord Fairfax on his return; at any rate, he gave
him an account of his adventures, and no doubt
expanded the entry at the beginning of the diary,
where he writes : " Rode to his Lordship's quarters,
about four miles higher up the river Shenandoah.
We went through most beautiful groves of sugar-

48 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

trees, and spent the best part of the day in admir-
ing the trees and the richness of the land." Very
likely Lord Fairfax had himself visited his quar-
ters before this, but I think he must have been
further stirred by the reports which Washington
brought of the country, for not long after he went
to live there.

The place known as Lord Fairfax's Quarters, he
now called Green way Court, and he hoped to build
a great manor-house in which he should live, after
the style of an English earl, surrounded by his
tenants and servants. He never built more than
a house for his steward, however. It was a long
story-and-a-half limestone building, the roof slop-
ing forward so as to form a cover for the veranda,
which ran the whole length of the house. The
great Virginia outside chimneys were the homes
of martins and swallows, and the house itself shel-
tered the steward and such chance guests as came
into the wilderness. Upon the roof were two
wooden belfries ; the bells were to call the slaves
to work, or to sound an alarm in case of an attack
by Indians.

Lord Fairfax built for his private lodging a
rough cabin only about twelve feet square, a short
distance from the larger building. Here he lived
the rest of his days. Upon racks on the walls
were his guns, and close at hand choice books
with which he kept alive his old taste for litera-
ture. His hounds walked in and out ; and hither,

THE YOUNG SURVEYOR. 49

too, came backwoodsmen and Indians. He spent
his time hunting and apportioning his great es-
tate amongst the settlers, fixing boundary lines,
making out leases, and arranging settlements with
his tenants. He gave freely to all who came, but
his own life was plain and simple. He kept up,
however, in a curious way, his old relation with
the fine world of London ; for, though he dressed
as a hunter, and almost as a backwoodsman, he
sent every year to London for new suits of clothes
of the most fashionable sort.

I suppose this was in part to enable him to ap-
pear in proper dress when he went to his friends'
plantations ; but perhaps also he wished to re-
mind himself that he was still an English gentle-
man, and might, whenever he chose, go back to
the Old World. But he never did go. He lived
to see his young friend become general of the army
raised to defend the colonies against the unlaw-
ful use of authority by the British crown. Lord
Fairfax never believed it unlawful ; but he was an
old man ; he took no part in the struggle, but he
lived to hear of the surrender of Cornwallis and
the downfall of the British power in the colonies ;
he received messages of love from the victorious
general whom he had first started in the world ;
and he died soon after — on December 12, 1781
— ninety years old.

It was this commission from Lord Fairfax to
survey his lands which made the beginning of

50 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Washington's public life. His satisfactory execu-
tion of the task brought him an appointment from
the governor as public surveyor. This meant
that, when he made surveys, he could record them
in the regular office of the county, and they would
stand as authority if land were bought and sold.
For three years now, he devoted himself to this
pursuit, spending all but the winter months, when
he could not well carry on field work, in laying
out tracts of land up and down the Shenandoah
Valley and along the Potomac.

A great deal depended on the accuracy of sur-
veys ; for if the surveyor made mistakes, he would
be very likely to involve the persons whose land
he surveyed in endless quarrels and lawsuits.
People soon found out that Washington made no
mistakes, and he had his hands full. Years after-
ward, a lawyer who had a great deal of business
with land -titles in the new Virginia country de-
clared that the only surveys on which he could de-
pend were those of Washington.

The young surveyor, by his familiarity with the
country, learned where the best lands lay, and he
was quick to take advantage of the knowledge, so
that many fine sections were taken up by him and
others of his family and connections. He saw
what splendid prospects the wilderness held out,
and by contact with the backwoodsmen and the
Indians, he laid the foundation of that broad
knowledge of men and woodcraft which stood him

THE YOUNG SURVEYOR. 51

in such good stead afterward. He must have
seemed almost like one of the Indians themselves,
as he stood, grave and silent, watching them
around their camp-fires.

His outdoor life, his companionship with rough
men, and his daily work of surveying served to
toughen him. They made him a self-reliant man
beyond his years. People who saw him were
struck by the curious likeness which his walk bore
to that of the Indians. He was straight as an ar-
row, and he walked with his feet set straight out,
moving them forward with the precision and care
which the Indian uses. Especially did his long
isolation in the wilderness confirm him in the
habit of silence which he had as a boy and kept
through life. Living so much by himself, he
learned to think for himself and rely on himself.

Meanwhile, though his occupation was thus
helping to form his character, he was still learn-
ing from his associates. There were three or four
houses where he was at home. He went back to
his mother at her plantation on the Rappahan-
nock ; he was a welcome guest at Belvoir ; he vis-
ited Lord Fairfax in his cabin, and, as his diary
shows, read his lordship's books as well as talked
with the quaint old gentleman ; and he always
had a home with his brother Lawrence at Mount
Vernon.

CHAPTER VII.

THE OHIO COMPANY.

WHETHER in the woods or at his friends'
houses, George Washington was sure, at this time,
to hear much talk of the country which lay to the
westward. The English had their colonies along
the Atlantic coast, and guarded the front door to
the American continent. The French had their
military posts along the St. Lawrence and the
great lakes, and in the Mississippi and Ohio val-
leys. They had entered the continent by other
doors, and the two nations were like two families
living in the same house, each wishing the whole
premises and making ready to oust the other.

The French held their possessions in America
chiefly by means of forts and trading-posts ; the
English by means of farms and towns. So, while
the French were busy making one fort after an-
other in the interior, meaning to have a line from
New Orleans to Quebec, the English were con-
stantly clearing away woods and planting farms
farther to the westward and nearer to the French
forts. The great Appalachian mountain range
kept the two people apart for a time, but English
settlers were every year crossing the mountains,

THE OHIO COMPANY. 53

and making their way into the fertile valleys be-
yond.

The Indians who roamed over the country
found themselves between two fires. They saw
very plainly that if these two foreign nations kept
increasing their foothold, there would be little
room left for themselves. They saw, too, that the
French and the English would not settle down in
peace together, nor divide the land between them.
Nor were the Indians wholly at peace among
themselves. One tribe fought another, and each
was very ready to call in the aid of the white man.

So the tribes divided. The French were very
willing to have certain Indians on their side, when
they should come to blows with the English ; the
English sought to make friends with other Indians
who were the enemies of those that had formed
alliance with the French ; and a tribe would some-
times change its position, siding now with the
French, now with the English.

' O

The region of country which was the prize most
eagerly contended for by both nations was that
watered by the Ohio River and its tributaries. As
yet, there were no white settlements in this region ;
but both French and English traders made their
way into it and carried on a brisk business with
the Indians. The two nations now set to work in
characteristic fashion to get control of the Ohio
Valley. The French began to build forts in com-
manding positions; the English formed a great

54 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

land company, the object of which was to send out
emigrants from England and the Atlantic colonies
to settle in the Ohio Valley, plant farms, and so
gain a real possession.

The company thus formed was called the Ohio
Company. It was planned in 1748, by Thomas
Lee, a Virginian gentleman, who associated with
himself thirteen other gentlemen, — one, a London
merchant who was to act as the company's agent
in England ; the others, persons living in Virginia
and Maryland. They obtained a charter from the
king, and the grant of five hundred thousand
acres of land lying chiefly south of the Ohio River
and west of the Alleghany Mountains, between
the Monongahela and Kanawha rivers. These
gentlemen reasoned that the natural passage to
the Ohio country lay by the Potomac River and
through the breaks in the mountain ranges caused
by those branches of the Ohio River which took
their rise in Virginia. So they intended that the
stream of trade which flowed into the Ohio Valley
should take its rise in Maryland and Virginia,
and benefit the people of those colonies ; and in
order to carry out their plans, they proposed to
build a road for wagons from the Potomac to the
Monongahela.

George Washington's elder brothers Lawrence
and Augustine, were both among the original mem-
bers of the Ohio Company, and when, shortly af-
ter its formation, Mr. Lee died, Lawrence Wash-

THE OHIO COMPANY. 55

ington became the principal manager. He took a
very strong interest in the enterprise, and was pai1-
ticularly desirous of settling a colony of Germans
on the company's land. The plans of the Ohio
Company were freely discussed at Mount Vernon,
and George Washington, who had made himself
well acquainted with much of the country which
lay on the way to the Ohio, was an interested lis-
tener and talker.

There was other talk, however, besides that of
trade and settlement. The French were every-
where making preparations to assert their owner-
ship of the western country, and the colonies took
the alarm and began also to make ready for pos-
sible war. Virginia was divided into military dis-
tricts, each of which was under the charge of an
adjutant-general, whose business it was to attend
to the organization and equipment of the militia.
George Washington was only nineteen years of
age, but his brother Lawrence had such confidence
in his ability that he secured for him the appoint-
ment of adjutant-general for the military district
which included Mount Vernon.

To hold such a post, one must be both a drill-
master and something of a tactician, as well as a
natural leader and good manager. Washington
went to work with a will to qualify himself for his
place. His brother had served long enough in
the army to be able to give him some help, and
Lawrence's comrades in tlje West Indies camT

56 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

paigns could give even more explicit aid. One of
these, Major Muse, was a frequent guest at Mount
Vernon, and now undertook to teach George
Washington the art of war. He lent the young
adjutant military treatises, and drilled him in
manual exercises. A Dutch soldier, Jacob Van
Braam, who was making a living as fencing-mas-
ter, gave him lessons in the sword exercise, and
Washington had the opportunity afterward of
doing his old teacher a good turn by securing him
a position in the army of which he was himself an
officer.

While he was in the midst of all this military
exercise, which was very well suited to the mind
of one who had been captain of his school com-
pany, he was suddenly obliged to drop his sword
and manual, and make ready for a voyage. Law-
rence Washington, whose health had been im-
paired by his campaigning in the West Indies,
was ill with consumption ; and his physicians or-
dered him to take a voyage to the West Indies
again, — this time to recover, if possible, the
health which he had lost there when a soldier.
He proposed to pass the winter at Barbadoes, and
to take his brother George with him.

The two brothers sailed near the end of Septem-
ber, 1751. George Washington, with his method-
ical habits, at once began a diary, which he kept
on the voyage and during his stay on the island.
As two gentlemen from Virginia, they were seized

THE OHIO COMPANY. 57

upon at once by the English officers and other
residents, and treated with great hospitality. The
people who live in a small and isolated settlement
like that of Barbadoes are generally very glad to
meet some one whom they have not seen every
day the year around. So the two brothers dined
with this and that new acquaintance, and George,
being robust and not needing to spare himself,
walked, rode, and drove over the island.

Unfortunately, in the midst of his pleasure, he
was seized with small-pox and obliged to keep by
himself during the last part of his stay. Vacci-
nation was not understood at that time, and there
was nothing to be done, if the small-pox were
about, but to have it and have it as lightly as pos-
sible. Washington had a strong constitution, and
bore this trying illness well, but he carried some
slight scars from the disease through the rest of
his life.

In his diary he recorded briefly the events of
each day of his journey, but at the end of his stay,
he filled a few pages with general reflections upon
the life on which he had looked, and which was
so different from that of Virginia. He was of a
frugal mind himself, and was amazed at the shift-
less ways of the people of Barbadoes. " How
wonderful," he says, " that such people should be
in debt, and not be able to indulge themselves
in all the luxuries as well as necessaries of life.
Yet so it happens. Estates are often alienated

58 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

for debts. How persons coming to estates of two,
three, and four hundred acres (which are the
largest) can want, is to me most wonderful."

The exactness which the young surveyor had
shown in his plans and in his accounts is very apt
to go with great prudence and economy. Up to
this time he had had very little money besides
what he had earned ; but he shows in many ways
that he had acquired the fundamental principle of
sound living, — never spend money until you have
earned it ; and to this principle he held all his life.
I know that prudence and economy are usually
regarded as habits which one acquires by careful
training, and so they may be. But with George
Washington I suspect these traits were inborn and
very nearly allied to genius. He had a genius for
order and method ; it did not sparkle like a genius
for wit or imagination, but one must not think less
of it for that reason. Because he was so careful
and correct, some people thought him mean and
close ; but he could afford to be thought so, if
his carefulness and correctness kept him scrupu-
lously honest.

After the two brothers had been on the island
about six weeks, Lawrence Washington, with the
uneasiness of an invalid, was sure that he should
be better off in Bermuda, and he resolved to go
there as soon as the spring opened. But he longed
to see his family, and accordingly sent his brother
back to Virginia, intending that he should return

THE OHIO COMPANY. 59

later to Bermuda with Mrs. Washington. George
had a stormy passage, and reached Virginia in
February. There he awaited orders from his
brother. But Lawrence Washington, with the
caprice and changing mood of a consumptive,
could not make up his mind what he most wanted,
— whether to send for his wife or to go home
himself. At last his disease increased so rapidly
as to alarm him, and he hastened home, reaching
Mount Vernon only a short time before his death,
which took place in July, 1752.

He left a wife and one daughter. It is a sign
both of his confidence in his brother George and
of his love for him, that he made him, though
only twenty years old, one of the executors of his
will, and his heir in case his daughter should not
live to be of age. As George Washington was
more familiar with his brother's affairs than any
one else, the other executors left the management
of the estate almost entirely to him. From this
time, Mount Vernon was his home, — though it
must have been a melancholy home at first ; for
he had looked up to his elder brother since he was
a boy, and now it was as if a second father and
a dear companion had died.

CHAPTEE VIII.

MAJOR WASHINGTON.

FOR a while George Washington was closely
occupied with settling his brother's estate, but he
was obliged to busy himself with public affairs
also ; for there were growing rumors of French
movements to the westward, and to these Virginia,
as one of the nearest colonies and most concerned,
was bound to pay special heed. Robert Dinwid-
die, a Scotchman and surveyor of customs in Vir-
ginia, had just been appointed lieutenant-governor,
which at that time meant resident and acting gov-
ernor. As a new broom sweeps clean, immediately
he was very active. Virginia was divided into
four military districts and the militia put into ac-
tive training. Washington had shown himself so
capable before that he was again appointed ad-
jutant-general, with the rank of major ; and one
of the districts, including the northern counties,
was assigned to him.

It was not in the colonies alone that prepara-
tions went on. The colonies were a part of the
British empire, and a blow struck at them by the
French in America was an attack on England by
France. England, therefore, sent out cannon and

MAJOR WASHINGTON. 61

powder to Virginia, and instructed the governor
to make all speed and build two forts on the Ohio
River, in order to secure the country against
French occupation.

But the French had moved before the English.
In military affairs, the general who is first on the
ground usually has a great advantage ; the French
were a more military people than the English ; the
whole occupation by the French in America was
an occupation by soldiers ; and so, while the Eng-
lish ministry and Governor Dinwiddie and the
Virginia militia were making ready to start, the
governor of Canada had dispatched troops and
supplies into the debatable territory, and was
busily engaged in winning over the Indians.
Moreover, it was said that he had seized certain
English traders and sent them, prisoners, to
France.

As soon as the news of this reached Governor
Dinwiddie, he determined to send a commissioner
to the officer in command of the French forces,
and ask by what right Frenchmen were building
forts in the king's dominions, and what they were
intending to do ; why they had made prisoners of
peaceable Englishmen ; and, as the two nations
were not at war, why French soldiers were invad-
ing English territory. Moreover, the commis-
sioner was to see the Indian chiefs and make
sure that they did not form an alliance with the
French.

62 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

It was no slight matter for any one to undertake
such an errand. He must know something of the
country ; he must be used to Indians ; he must be
a person whom the French would respect ; above
all, he must be strong of body, courageous, pru-
dent, wise, and on the alert ; for the journey
would be a severe one, and the messenger would
need to have what is called a " level head." The
king's officers in Virginia would have to act on
such information as he brought : how many
Frenchmen there were in the Ohio country ; how
many more were on the way ; what they were
doing ; what were their plans. Of course no one
expected that the French commandant would
kindly sit down and tell the Virginian commis-
sioner what he meant to do ; the commissioner
must find that out by his own sagacity.

Now the persons who were most immediately
concerned were the members of the Ohio Com-
pany. Indeed, it was largely through their agency
that the governor of Virginia, who himself was a
stockholder, had moved in the matter. Lawrence
Washington was dead, but Augustine Washington
was interested, and the younger brother, George,
had charge of Lawrence Washington's affairs.
He knew perfectly what interests were at stake.
Besides, he was a backwoodsman ; it was no nov-
elty for him to follow trails through the forest ;
he could deal with Indians; and, above all, he
had shown himself a clear-headed, far-sighted

MAJOR WASHINGTON. 63

young man, whom every one instinctively trusted.
He was one of his Majesty's officers, for he was
Adjutant-General of the Northern District ; and
so, though Major George Washington was but
twenty-one years old, Governor Dinwiddie and his
council selected him for this delicate and weighty
mission.

It was no summer jaunt on which he set out.
He waited upon the governor at Williamsburg,
and was armed with papers duly signed and
sealed with the great seal of Virginia, giving him
authority as commissioner. On October 30, 1753,
he left Williamsburg with a journey of more than
a thousand miles before him. He stopped at
Fredericksburg to say good-by to his mother, and
to engage his old fencing-master, Van Braam, as
an interpreter. Washington knew no French,
and never learned it. Van Braam pretended to
know it well, but really had only an ignorant
smattering of the language. Thence he went to
Alexandria, where he laid in supplies ; and to
Winchester, which was the most important fron-
tier settlement, where he provided himself with
horses, tents, and other camp equipments.

The real start of the expedition was to be made
from Wills Creek, now Cumberland in Maryland,
which was the outpost of civilization. Here
Washington arrived on November 14, and made
up his little company. It consisted of Christo-
pher Gist, who was in the employ of the Ohio

64 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Company, and was an experienced frontiersman ;
of Jacob Van Braam, the French interpreter ; of
Davidson, an Indian interpreter ; and of four
frontiersmen. The party was now complete, and
the next day they plunged into the wilderness.

Gist knew the way as far as an Indian village
called Logstown, on the banks of the Ohio, about
seventeen miles from where Pittsburg now stands ;
there they were to call together the Indian chiefs
and confer with them. It had been raining and
snowing so heavily in the mountains that they
were a week making their way to the Mononga-
hela River at Turtle Creek. Here they found
the river so swollen that they saw it was impossi-
ble to cross with their pack-horses. Accordingly,
they sent all their baggage down the river in a
canoe, under charge of two of the men, while the
rest swam their horses across and rode down to
the rendezvous at the fork of the Ohio, ten miles
below.

The Ohio Company had proposed to build a
fort about ten miles away from the junction of the
Monongahela and Alleghany ; here lived a friendly
Indian, Shingiss, and that may have determined
their plans. But Washington, who reached the
fork of the rivers before the canoe, began at once
to look over the ground, and decided without hes-
itation that the real site for the fort should be the
point of land which lay between the two rivers.

Shingiss went on with the party to Logstown,

MAJOR WASHINGTON. 65

and there Washington stayed five days, conferring
with the Indian chiefs and gathering information
from some French deserters who happened to be
there. He was impatient to go forward to the
French forts, but he knew something of Indian
ways, and he was learning more. The chiefs sat
and talked and smoked, and were silent, and shook
their heads, and said it was a serious matter.
Serious, indeed, it was to the poor Indians, for
the French had already told them that they were
coming in force in the spring to drive the English
out of the country ; but if the English proved too
strong for that, then French and English would
agree and divide the land between them. As in
that case the Indians would have small favor, the
French advised the chiefs to side with them against
the English.

At last Washington persuaded the Indians to
let three of their chiefs and an old hunter accom-
pany his party to where the French were, and
they followed the Alleghany to Venango, now
Franklin in Venango County, Pennsylvania,
where were a few Frenchmen who had driven
out an English trader. But the really important
station was Fort le Boeuf.

The Frenchmen tried to entice the Indians from
Washington, and otherwise to keep him from going
on ; but he insisted on carrying out his plans, and
toiled for four more days through mire and snow-
drifts until he came to the fort.

66 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

The French commandant, M. de Saint Pierre,
received the Virginian commissioner politely, and
entertained him for a few days with hospitality,
but in the mean time did his utmost to win from
Washington the Indian chiefs who had accompa-
nied him. Finally, however, M. de Saint Pierre
drew up a formal reply to Governor Dinwiddie's
letter, and Washington and his party returned by
canoe to Venango, having sent the horses and bag-
gage on in advance.

Now began a terrible journey. The horses were
so weak, but so necessary for carrying the bag-
gage, that Washington and his companions set
out on foot, while the horses followed behind.
Washington was dressed as an Indian, and for
three days they kept on in this way, the horses
losing strength, the cold increasing, and the roads
growing worse. Then Washington, seeing how
slowly the party was moving, determined to take
Gist with him, and push through the woods, the
nearest way, leaving the rest of the company to-
gether with the horses and baggage under charge
of Van Braam to follow as well as they could.

It was the day after Christmas when he started.
He put his journal and other papers into a pack
which he strapped to his back, wrapped himself
in a stout coat, took his gun in his hand, and set
off alone with Gist. They were only a few miles
from Venango, and they meant to follow the path
a short distance to an Indian village called Mur-

MAJOR WASHINGTON. 67

dering Town, and then go by the compass through
the woods in as straight a line as possible to the
fork of the Ohio. The village was well-named ;
for shortly after they had left it, they were fired
at by a French Indian whom they had taken along
there as a guide. They pretended to think that
his gun went off for some other reason ; but they
kept him with them, watching him very closely
all day till nine o'clock that night. Then they
sent him home. But they knew well that he
would rally his friends and pursue them ; so they
walked all that night and the next day, reaching
the Ohio River at dark, and rested there over
night.

They supposed, of course, that they should find
the river frozen tight and could cross on the ice,
but to their dismay, it was frozen only near the
shore, while blocks of ice were swirling down the
middle of the stream. " There was no way of
getting over," says Washington in his journal,
" but on a raft, which we set about, with but one
poor hatchet, and finished just after sun-setting.
This was a whole day's work ; we next got it
launched, then went on board of it, and set off ;
but before we were half-way over, we were jammed
in the ice in such a manner that we expected every
moment our raft to sink and ourselves to perish.
I put out my setting-pole to try to stop the raft,
that the ice might pass by, when the rapidity of
the stream threw it with so much violence against

68 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

the pole that it jerked me out into ten feet water ;
but I fortunately saved myself by catching hold
of one of the raft-logs. Notwithstanding all our
efforts, we could not get to either shore, but were
obliged, as we were near an island, to quit our
raft and make to it. The cold was so extremely
severe that Mr. Gist had all his fingers and some
of his toes frozen, and the water was shut up so
hard that we found no difficulty in getting off the
island on the ice in the morning, and went to Mr.
Frazier's."

Here they succeeded in getting horses, and in
a few days Washington was at Williamsburg and
reporting to the governor. He had not merely
made a very difficult journey in the depth of win-
ter and brought back an answer to the governor's
letter ; but he had made the most minute obser-
vations of the condition and plans of the French ;
he had also strengthened the friendship of the
English and Indians ; and by patient, unwearied,
and resolute attention to the object of his mis-
sion, he had brought back a fund of extremely
valuable information for the use of the colony.
There could be no doubt in the minds of his
friends, after reading his journal, that here was
a man who could be depended upon. They had
known him as a prudent, careful, economical, de-
liberate, rather silent young fellow, whose judg-
ment was worth having ; but I doubt if they had
fully perceived before what indomitable courage

MAJOR WASHINGTON. 69

he had, how fearless he was in the midst of dan-
ger, how keen and wary in his dealing with an
enemy, and how full of resources and pluck when
difficulties arose. Here was no sunshine soldier..

CHAPTER IX.

FORT DUQUESNE AND FORT NECESSITY.

THE House of Burgesses was not in session
when Washington made his report to Governor
Dinwiddie. But no time was to be lost, and the
energetic governor and council issued orders to
erect a fort at once upon the point of land at the
fork of the Ohio, which Washington had recom-
mended as the best site. Washington was to
have command of the two companies of men who
were to be enlisted for this purpose, but he was to
remain for the present at Alexandria, organizing
the expedition, while his second in command,
Captain Trent, a trader and frontiersman, went
forward with such men as he could raise in the
back settlements, and began the construction of
the fort.

Lord Fairfax took a lively interest in his young
friend's business, but it was not so easy to enlist
men for an expedition of this kind, as it was to
raise and drill a company of militia, which, by the
laws of the colony, could not be marched more
than five miles from the boundary line of the
colony. Throughout the winter months Wash-
ington was hard at work raising his company and

FORT DUQUESNE AND FORT NECESSITY. 71

putting them in readiness. He had a sorry lot of
volunteers to work with ; they were for the most
part shiftless fellows who had nothing else to do,
and scarcely anything to their backs. They were
good-natured, however, and ready to buy clothing
if the major would pay them their wages ; but the
major had no money of his own to advance, and
he had hard work getting any from the govern-
ment. He had to reason with his men, humor
them, and fit them for service as well as he could.
It was capital preparation for a kind of work
which he had to do on a large scale afterwai-d.

The governor, meanwhile, had been stirring up
the governors of the other colonies, and had called
the burgesses together. He could not make every
one feel his own need of action ; but he persuaded
the burgesses to vote a sum of money, and thus
was able to enlarge the military force to six com-
panies. There was a proposition to put Wash-
ington in command of the entire force ; but the
young major was reluctant to assume such a
charge, when he had had so little experience in
handling troops. " I have too sincere a love for
my country," he said, " to undertake that which
may tend to the prejudice of it."

Accordingly Joshua Fry, an English gentleman
of education, was commissioned as colonel, and
Washington was given the second place, with rank
of lieutenant-colonel. Fry now remained at Alex-
andria and Washington pushed forward to Wills

72 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Creek, with about a hundred and fifty men, in-
tending to join Trent and complete the fort which
he had begun. He reached Wills Creek with his
ragged, half-drilled men on April 20, and soon re-
ceived a very disagreeable piece of news.

Trent, for some reason, had left the fort which
he was building, and his second in command hav-
ing also absented himself, the next highest offi-
cer, Ensign Ward, was left in command of the
company, which numbered forty-one men. Sud-
denly there had appeared a multitude of canoes
and other craft coming down the Alleghany. It
was a large French force dispatched by the
governor of Canada to occupy the same point of
land. Ward, of course, could do nothing. He
was permitted to withdraw with his men, and the
French at once pulled down the fort which Trent
had begun, and set to work building another and
larger one which they named Fort Duquesne.
Here, after the wars of the next thirty years were
over, the city of Pittsburgh" began to i*ise.

The taking of the post by an armed force was
like a declaration of war on the part of France.
It was the beginning of the great seven years' war
between France and England which ended in the
fall of France in America, and led by swift steps
to the independence of the colonies. By a strange
coincidence, the nearest English force was under
the command of a young Virginian officer of
militia, only twenty-two years old, who was after-

FORT DUQUESNE AND FORT NECESSITY. 73

ward to be the leader of the colonies in their war
against England, and to have the aid of the very
France which he was now fighting.

Washington did not hesitate. He at once sent
a messenger with the news to Governor Dinwid-
die, and wrote letters to the governors of Mary-
land and Pennsylvania, urging them to send for-
ward troops ; for each colony acted independently
of the others. Then he began work with such
men and materials as he had, meaning to push
through the woods to where Red Stone Creek
empties into the Monongahela, about half-way to
Fort Duquesne, and to build a fort there. It was
a spot where Gist had already constructed a store-
house for the Ohio Company. By this plan,
Washington would be keeping his men at work,
and would have a road built for the use of the
troops yet to come. At that point, moreover,
there was water communication with Fort Du-
quesne.

Washington built his road and marched his
men until he reached a level piece of grassland,
partially covered with bushes, that lay at the foot
of Laurel Hill, a spur of the Alleghanies, and was
called Great Meadows. It was a good place for
a camp, and a good place for fighting if he should
be attacked. His scouts had been out, and his
Indian friends were on the watch for him. Word
came that a French party had left Fort Duquesne
and were intending to engage with the first Eng-

74 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

lish forces they should meet, for they had heard
that the English were on the move.

Washington at once made ready for the attack.
There was a gully crossing the field, which he
turned into an intrenchment. He also cut down
the bushes ; but he did not wait for the enemy.
He feared they might surprise his camp ; and get-
ting word from the Indians that they had dis-
covered, as they thought, the place where the
French were hidden, he took forty men, and at
ten o'clock at night, in the midst of a hard rain,
set out to surprise the enemy.

" The path," he says, " was hardly wide enough
for one man ; we often lost it, and could not find
it again for fifteen or twenty minutes, and we
often tumbled over each other in the dark."

At sunrise, May 28, 1754, Washington reached
the camp where his Indian friends were. They
joined him, and the impetuous young soldier led
his combined forces, Indian file, in a stealthy
march through the woods to the rocky hollow
where the Frenchmen lay concealed. As soon as
the English came upon them, the Frenchmen
sprang up and raised their guns. Washington,
who was in front, gave his men the order to fire,
and a sharp engagement followed. Ensign Ju-
monville, commanding the French party, and nine
others were killed. On the English side, one man
was killed and two or three wounded. Twenty-two
prisoners were taken, and Washington marched
back with them to the camp at Great Meadows.

FORT DUQ.UESNE AND FORT NECESSITY. 75

It turned out that Jumonville and his men were
an advance party sent out from Fort Duquesne to
reconnoitre. They had discovered Washington's
force, and being fewer in number, had sent back
to the fort for reinforcements. Meanwhile, they
were in hiding when surprised by Washington,
and had no chance to escape. The young Virgin-
ian lieutenant-colonel had every reason to believe
that his force was to be attacked, and he acted
promptly. He did not stop to parley with them,
but answered their raised guns with an order to
his men to fire.

The first shot had been fired, and Washington
was the man who had fired it. He knew well
what would be the immediate consequence of his
act ; the French would come in force as soon as
they heard the news, and he began at once to pre-
pare for defense. He threw up earthworks and
made a palisade, and named it Fort Necessity.
It was a slight enough protection. He sent his
prisoners to Winchester, and informed Governor
Dinwiddie of what he had done. '• Your Honor
may depend," he says, " I will not be surprised,
let them come at what hour they will ; and this is
as much as I can promise. But my best endeav-
ors shall not be wanting to effect more. I doubt
not if you hear I am beaten, but you will hear at
the same time that we have done our duty, in fight-
ing as long as there was a shadow of hope."

The camp was now a lively place. The Indians,

76 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

afraid of the French, began to flock to it, and the
companies left behind at Wills Creek now came
up ; but Colonel Fry was dead, and Washington
was in sole command, after all. Meanwhile, Cap-
tain Mackay came with a company from South
Carolina. He was a captain of the regular army,
and so could not serve under a colonial officer ;
but he was a man of sense and courtesy, and, by
mutual consideration, he and Washington avoided
any serious conflict of authority. But the volun-
teer and regular troops could not agree so well ;
the camp was becoming crowded, and Washington,
anxious to carry out his plans, left Captain Mac-
kay in command at Great Meadows, and moved
his men thirteen miles further, to a place where
Gist had formed a small settlement. It took two
weeks to do this, for the men built a road as they
went, and the way led through a mountain gorge.
Of course this forward movement was made
known to the French by their scouts, and Wash-
ington had his scouts out quite as far as Fort
Duquesne itself. Soon reports came thick and
fast that the French post had been strongly re-
enforced, and that a large body of men was pre-
paring to descend upon the English. Washington
sent for Captain Mackay and his company, and
they arrived near the end of June. A council of
war was held, and the situation studied. The
place where they were was unsuited for defense,
since hills surrounded it. The enemy's force was

FORT DUQUESNE AND FORT NECESSITY. 77

much greater than their own, and they were in no
condition to make a successful resistance.

The order to retreat was given. Washington,
who had the courage to lead an attack, had also
the patience, the self-control, and the cheerful
spirit which are so necessary in a retreat. The
horses were broken down and the men had to
drag the heavy guns themselves. Washington
loaded his own horse with public stores and went
afoot. He would not even require the soldiers to
carry his own baggage, as he might have done,
but paid them for the labor. So, on July 2, they
were back at Great Meadows. They did not
mean to stay there, for though it was a good field
for an open fight, it had no natural protection,
and Fort Necessity was a hasty, flimsy affair.
But the men were exhausted ; they had been with-
out sufficient provision for some time, and they
were expecting supplies from below.

They strengthened the fort as well as they could,
but the French were only a few hours behind
them. The very next morning they came in sight,
nine hundred strong, not counting Indians. Now
was the time for boldness ; it was too late to re-
treat. Washington led his little army out before
the fort as if to invite attack ; if the Frenchmen
came on, he might, in a fair fight, beat them ; but
they did not come on. They remained at the
border of the woods in a position where they could
cut off his retreat, and began firing from a dis-

78 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

tance. Washington, accordingly, withdrew his
men behind the embankment.

For nine hours the two forces faced each other,
sending shots through the heavy rain and the mist
which almost shut them out from each other's
sight. There had been a heavy loss on both sides,
but when night fell the English were in a desper-
ate condition, half starved, their powder nearly
gone, and their guns almost good for nothing.
The French proposed a parley. Washington re-
fused, thinking they meant to send an officer who
would find out in what a deplorable condition they
were. But when they proposed that he should
send an officer to them, he consented, and sent
Jacob Van Braam, who was now a captain, and
the only uninjured officer who understood French.

Van Braam came back, bringing with him in
writing the terms upon which the French would
accept a surrender. The terms were on the whole
liberal. The English were to carry with them
everything in their possession except their artil-
lery, were to promise to build no more forts there
or beyond the mountains for a year, and were to
return the prisoners taken when Jumonville was
killed. As a security for this last, two officers
were to be left with the French as hostages.
Washington accepted the terms, and the next
morning began his march back to Wills Creek.
From there he and Captain Mackay went to Wil-
liainsburg to report in person to the governor.

FORT DUQUESNE AND FORT NECESSITY. 79

Failure is sometimes quite as necessary to char-
acter as success. It must have been with a heavy
heart that the young colonel turned back from
Fort Necessity that 4th of July, 1754, his expedi-
tion broken up, his military ardor damped, his eye
resting on the miserable men whom he was lead-
ing away from the bloody field of Great Meadows.
He was only twenty-two years old. Twenty-one
years after the day when he marshaled his men
before Fort Necessity, he was to draw his sword
at the head of an American army.

CHAPTER X.

A TERRIBLE LESSON IN WAR.

HOWEVER keenly Washington may have felt
the defeat which he suffered at Great Meadows,
no one blamed him for a misfortune which he
had tried in so spirited a fashion to prevent. On
the contrary, the House of Burgesses, then in
session, after hearing an account of the engage-
ment and reading the articles of capitulation,
passed a vote of thanks to Colonel Washington
and his officers, "for their bravery and gallant de-
fense of their country." In point of fact, the ex-
pedition had by no means been a failure. It had
built many miles of road ; it had shown that the
Virginian soldiers could fight, and it had made
the French respect their enemy.

To Washington it had been an initiation into
military service. He had heard the bullets whis-
tling about him, and had known what it was to
lead men ; he had encountered on a small scale
the difficulties which beset commanders of armies ;
he had stood for nine hours under fire from a su-
perior force. Not all the hardships of the sharp
campaign could dampen his ardor. He knew that
he was a soldier ; he knew, too, that he was a com-

A TERRIBLE LESSON IN WAR. 81

mander, and such knowledge is much more than
petty conceit.

He was to be put to the test in this matter in
a new way. He went back to Alexandria, where
his regiment was quartered, and shortly after re-
ceived word from Governor Dinwiddie to be in
readiness for a fresh movement. It had been re-
solved to send another expedition to attack Fort
Duquesne, and Washington was bidden at once to
fill up his regiment to three hundred men and join
the other forces at Wills Creek. Eager as the

O

young colonel was for service, he had not taken
leave of his good sense. He was something more
than a fighter, and his native judgment, as well as
his hard-earned experience, showed him the fool-
hardiness of such an adventure. It does not ap-
pear that he wrote to his superior officer, the
governor, remonstrating against the wild project,
but he wrote to Lord Fairfax, who had influence,
giving his reasons why the enterprise was morally
impossible.

They were without men, money, or provisions.
It would be impossible in any case to move before
November, and he knew well enough, by his ex-
perience the year before, what a terrible winter
campaign it would be. " To show you the state
of the regiment," he writes to Lord Fairfax, " I
have sent you a report by which you will perceive
what great deficiencies there are of men, arms,
tents, kettles, screws (which was a fatal want be-

82 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

fore), bayonets, cartouch- boxes, and everything
else. Again, were our men ever so willing to go,
for want of the proper necessaries of life they are
unable to do it. The chief part are almost naked,
and scarcely a man has either shoes, stockings, or
a hat. These things the merchants will not credit
them for. The country has made no provision ;
they have not money themselves, and it cannot
be expected that the officers will engage for them
again, personally, having suffered greatly on this
head already ; especially now, when we have all
the reason in the world to believe that they will
desert whenever they have an opportunity. There
is not a man that has a blanket to secure him
from cold or wet. Ammunition is a material ob-
ject, and that is to come from Williamsburg or
wherever the governor can procure it. An ac-
count must be first sent of the quantity which is
wanted ; this, added to the carriage up, with the
necessary tools that must be had, as well as the
time for bringing them round, will, I believe, ad-
vance us into that season, when it is usual, in
more moderate climates, to retreat into winter-
quarters, but here, with us, to begin a campaign ! "
The argument of Washington's letter, of which
this is a part, was unanswerable. It showed his
clear, cool judgment, and the thoroughness with
which he considered every detail in a scheme.
The governor gave up his design, but it was not
long before he stumbled into a new folly. He

A TERRIBLE LESSON IN WAR. 83

had persuaded the burgesses to grant twenty
thousand pounds for military operations, and had
received ten thousand more from England. So
he set about enlarging the army to ten indepen-
dent companies of one hundred men each, propos-
ing to place each company under command of a
captain. He hoped in this way to be rid of the
jealousy which existed between the several offi-
cers, since there would be none above the rank of
captain.

The plan was only inferior to one by which
every soldier who enlisted should have been made
captain, so that nobody need be inferior to any-
body else. Washington not only saw the folly of
the proceeding from a military point of view (for
many of his difficulties had arisen from the pres-
ence of independent companies in the field with
his troops), but he resented the plan as at once
reducing him from the rank of colonel to that of
captain. He had risen to the position which he
held by regular promotion for bravery and sol-
dierly qualities. He could not be the football of
a capricious governor, and he resigned his com-
mission.

He was instantly wanted in another quarter.
Governor Sharpe of Maryland had received a
commission from the king, as commander-in-
chief of all the forces in America engaged against
the French. As soon as it was known that Wash-
ington had resigned his commission as colonel of

84 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

a Virginia regiment, Governor Sharpe sent to in-
vite him to return to the service under his com-
mand. He was to have command of a company,
but to retain his rank as colonel. Washington
replied at once that he could not think of accept-
ing service upon such terms. He was not to be
cajoled into assuming a false position. He cared
little for the title. What he wanted was the au-
thority which goes- with the title. There was no
pressing danger to the country, and he was not so
impatient to be in military service that he needed
as a soldier to throw away the position which he
had fairly won.

There was one consideration which especially
determined Washington against serving either as
captain of an independent company in Virginia,
or as one of Governor Sharpe's captains, with the
complimentary title of colonel. By a regulation
of government, all officers commissioned by the
king took rank above officers commissioned by
the governors of provinces. It seems that the
English authorities were determined to make the
colonies understand that their militia officers were
always inferior to the regular army officers who
came over from England.

There was such an officer sent over shortly after
this to take command of all the forces in the col-
onies. This . was Major-General Edward Brad-
dock. He had been in military service forty -five
years, and he knew all the rules of war. He was

A TERRIBLE LESSOX IN WAR. 85

a brave, hot-headed man, who knew to a nicety just
how troops should be drawn up, how they should
march and pei-form all the evolutions, how a captain
should salute his superior officer, and how much
pipeclay a soldier needed to keep his accoutre-
ments bright. He was a rigid disciplinarian, and
was called harsh and cruel, but that, very likely, was
because he demanded strict and instant obedience.

In February, 1755, General Braddock arrived
in Virginia, with his two regiments of regular
troops from England. Governor Dinwiddie was
delighted. He should have no more trouble with
obstinate burgesses and quarrelsome Virginia cap-
tains. Everybody expected that the French would
at once be driven out of the Ohio Valley, and
General Braddock was not the least confident.
There was a bustle in every quarter, and Alex-
andria was made the headquarters from which
troops, military stores, and provisions were to be
sent forward, for they could be brought up the
river to that point in men-of-war and transports.

As soon as Braddock had arrived in the coun-
try, Washington had addressed him a letter of
welcome, and now he was keenly intent on the
general's movements. From Mount Vernon he
could see the ships in the Potomac and hear the
din of preparation. He could not ride into town
or to Belvoir without being in the midst of the ex-
citement. This was something very different from
the poor, niggardly conduct of war which he had

86 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

known in the colony. It was on a great scale ; it
was war carried on by his Majesty's troops, well-
clad, splendidly equipped, and drilled under the
lead of a veteran general. He longed to join
them. Here would be a chance such as he had
never had, to learn something of the art of war ;
but he held no commission now, and had not even
a company to offer. Nor was he willing to be a
militia captain and subject to the orders of some
lieutenant in the regular army.

He was considering how he might volunteer,
when he received exactly the kind of invitation
which he desired. He was a marked man now,
and it did not take long for word to reach General
Braddock that the young Virginian colonel, who
had shown great spirit and ability in the recent
expedition, and was thoroughly familiar with the
route they were to take, desired to serve under
him, but not as a subordinate captain. There was
a way out of the difficulty, and the general at once
invited Washington to join his military family as
aid-de-camp.

Washington joyfully accepted. There was only
one drawback to his pleasure. His mother, as
soon as she heard of his decision, was filled with
alarm, and hurried to Mount Vernon to beg her
son to reconsider. No doubt they both remem-
bered how, at her earnest wish, he had abandoned
his purpose to join the British navj7, eight or nine
years before. But these eight or nine years had

RKADDOCK'S HEADQUARTERS IN VIRGINIA.

A TERRIBLE LESSON IN WAR. 87

made a great difference. He was a man now, and,
without loss of respect for his mother, he was
bound to decide for himself. He would be a loser
by the step in many ways. There was no one to
whom he could intrust the management of his af-
fairs at Mount Vernon, and his attendance on
General Braddock would involve him in consid-
erable expense. Nor could he expect, as a mere
aid-de-camp, to advance his interests in the mili-
tary profession. Nevertheless, Washington had
counted the cost, and not even his mother's en-
treaties turned him from his purpose.

At Alexandria, Washington first saw Brad-
dock ; he met there also the governors of Virginia,
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massa-
chusetts, who gathered for a grand council on the
campaign. Washington, quiet but observant,
looked upon all the preparations with admiration,
but without losing his coolness of judgment. He
saw the heavy artillery which Braddock had
brought, and which was waiting for teams to trans-
port it over the mountains. He remembered how
his men had toiled in dragging their few guns
over the rough road. " If our march is to be reg-
ulated by the slow movements of the train," he
said, " it will be tedious, very tedious indeed."

Early in May, Washington joined Genera].
Braddock at Fredericktown, Maryland, and there
he must have met a man of more consequence than
all the governors of the colonies ; for Benjamin^

88 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Franklin, Postmaster-General of Pennsylvania, at
that time a man of fifty years, came to confer with
General Braddock, and to do for him what no one
else could — procure horses and wagons enough to
transport his supplies and artillery. Franklin and
Washington probably seemed to most people at
that time as rather insignificant persons beside the
Major-General in command of the English forces
in America.

The headquarters were moved to Wills Creek,
where the militia had been hard at work with axe
and spade, and had built a fort which was named
Fort Cumberland, from the Duke of Cumberland,
Captain-General of the British army. For a
month Braddock fretted and fumed over the de-
lays which everybody seemed to cause. He was
thoroughly out of patience with all his surround-
ings. There were in all about twenty-two hun-
dred men gathered in camp. Some of these were
Virginia troops, and Braddock set his officers to
drilling them, but he thought them a slouchy lot
that never could be made into soldiers. Indeed,
it would have taken a long time to make them into
such machines as the soldiers whom he had
brought over from England. Washington was
fast learning many things. He was not deceived
by appearances. He found this great general an
obstinate, hot-tempered man, who would scarcely
listen to reason, and his soldiers, with all their
military training, of different stuff from the Vir-
ginians.

A TERRIBLE LESSON IN WAR. 89

Washington was sent off on an errand to Wil-
liam sburg for money. He performed his duty
with great promptness, and a week after his return
to camp, the army was on the move. But it
moved like a snail, for it was carrying a whole
house on its back. Braddock and his officers, ac-
customed to campaigns in Europe, seemed to be
unable to adapt themselves to the different condi-
tions of a new country. They encumbered them-
selves with everything which English army regu-
lations permitted. Washington saw the folly of
the course pursued, and, when his advice was
asked by the general, urged him, he says, in the
warmest terms he was able to use, " to push for-
ward, if even with a small but chosen band, with
such artillery and light stores as were necessary,
leaving the heavy artillery, baggage, and the like,
with the rear division of the army, to follow by
slow and easy marches, which they might do
safely, while we were advanced in front ; " and in
order to enforce his opinion and to lead the offi-
cers to give up some of their superfluous baggage,
and thus release horses for more necessary work,
he gave up his own best horse, and took no more
baggage than half his portmanteau could easily
contain.

His advice prevailed, and he set out with the
advance party. It was a prospect, he wrote to his
brother, which conveyed infinite delight to his
mind, though he was excessively ill at the time.

90 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

" But this prospect was soon clouded, and my
hopes brought very low indeed, when I found
that, instead of pushing on with vigor, without
regarding a little rough road, they were halting
to level every molehill, and to erect bridges over
every brook, by which means we were four days
in getting twelve miles." Ill, indeed, he was, and
for a fortnight so prostrated with fever that he
was forced to lie in hospital. But as soon as he
could move at all, he insisted on rejoining his
corps. " My fevers are very moderate," he writes
to one of the other aids on the last day of June,
" and I hope, near terminating. Then I shall
have nothing to encounter but weakness, which is
excessive, and the difficulty of getting to you, aris-
ing therefrom ; but this I would not miss doing,
before you reach Duquesne, for five hundred
pounds. However, I have no doubt now of doing
it, as I am moving on, and the general has given
me his word of honor, in the most solemn manner,
that it shall be effected."

On July 8, he succeeded in rejoining the ad-
vance division of the army, though he had to be
carried in a covered wagon. On July 9, he at-
tended the general on horseback, though he was
still very ill and weak. He had joined Braddock's
military family because he wished to learn how an
experienced English general practiced the art of
war, and how regularly trained troops fought. He
was to have the opportunity that day. They had

A TERRIBLE LESSON JN WAR. 91

reached a ford on the Monongahela, fifteen miles
from Fort Duquesne, and had crossed it. A sec-
ond ford lay five miles below, and the troops
marched, as if on dress parade, down the bank of
the river. Braddock intended that the French, if
they saw him, should be dismayed by the array,
and Washington was often heard to say, in after
years, that the most beautiful spectacle he had
ever beheld was the display of the British troops
on that eventful morning. Every man was neatly
dressed in full uniform, the soldiers were ar-
ranged in columns and marched in exact order,
the sun gleamed from their burnished arms ; the
river flowed tranquilly on their right, and the
deep forest overshadowed them with solemn gran-
deur on their left. Officers and men were equally
inspirited with cheering hopes and confident an-
ticipations.

But Washington was not so dazzled by this
brilliant spectacle as not to see the fatal blunder
which Braddock was making. He urged the gen-
eral to throw out Virginia rangers and Indian
scouts into the woods and ravines which lay before
them and on their side. It is almost incredible
that the general paid no attention to the caution,
and merely kept a few skirmishers a short way in
advance of his force. His army was now across
the second ford and moving along the other bank,
eight miles only from the fort. Suddenly a man
dressed like an Indian, but bearing the decoration

92 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

of an officer, sprang forward from the woods,
faced the column a moment, then turned and
waved his hat.

It was an officer leading the French forces,
which, accompanied by a horde of Indian allies,
had issued from Fort Duquesne and had disposed
themselves in the wood. Another instant, and a
storm of bullets rained down upon the English-
men. It was a surprise, but the troops were well
trained. They fired volley after volley into the
wood. They planted their cannon and went to
work in a business-like way, cheering as they
moved forward. For a moment the French
seemed to give way ; then, in another instant,
again the bullets fell from all sides upon the Eng-
lishmen, who were bewildered by the attack.
They could scarcely see any man ; there was noth-
ing to aim at. The enemy was indeed invisible,
for every man had posted himself, Indian fashion,
behind a tree. Now the troops huddled together
into a solid square and made so much the more
deadly mark for the rifles. They fell into a
panic ; they began to leave their guns and to re-
treat.

Braddock, who had been in the rear, came up
with the main body and met the vanguard on its
retreat. The two columns of men were thrown
into confusion. The Virginians alone, whom
Braddock had so despised for their negligent
bearing, kept their heads, and promptly adopting

A TERRIBLE LESSON IN WAR. 98

tactics familiar to them, screened themselves, as
did the enemy, behind trees. But Braddock, to
whom such methods were contrary to all the rules
of war, ordered them, with oaths, to form in line.
The general was a brave man, and if personal
courage could have saved the day, his intrepidity
would have done it. He dashed about on horse-
back. Two of his aids were wounded, and the
duty of carrying the general's orders fell on the
third, Colonel Washington, who was now learning
war with a vengeance. He rode in every direc-
tion, his tall, commanding figure a conspicuous
mark for the enemy's sharpshooters. More than
that, there were men there who had met him at
Great Meadows, and who now made him their
special mark. He had four bullets through his
coat, and two horses shot under him. He seemed
to escape injury as by a miracle.

Braddock at last ordered a retreat, and while
he and such of his officers as remained were en-
deavoring to bring the panic-stricken troops into
some kind of order, he was mortally wounded and
fell from his horse. He was borne on a litter,
but laid at last at the foot of a tree near the scene
of Washington's fight at Fort Necessity, where he
died in the night of July 13. The chaplain was
wounded, and Washington read the burial service
over the body of the general. It was a sorry
ending of the expedition which had set out with
such high hopes.

94 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Five days later Washington reached Fort Cum-
berland, and one of his first duties was to send a
letter to his mother. " I am still in a weak and
feeble condition," he writes, " which induces me
to halt here two or three days in the hope of re-
covering a little strength, to enable me to pro-
ceed homewards, from whence, I fear, I shall not
be able to stir till towards September ; so that I
shall not have the pleasure of seeing you till then,
unless it be in Fairfax."

He arrived at Mount Vernon on July 26.

CHAPTER XI.

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE VIRGINIA FORCES.

THE disastrous defeat of Braddock filled the
Virginia people with uneasiness, for it was sure to
be followed by Indian raids. The House of Bur-
gesses voted a sum of money, and resolved to in-
crease the regiment by making it consist of six-
teen companies. His friends immediately began
to urge Washington to solicit the command, but
he would do nothing of the sort. His experience
had taught him the weakness of the colonial mili-
tary system ; if he were to seek the place he could
not at the same time propose reforms. If the
command were offered him, that would be a dif-
ferent matter, for then he would be at liberty to
make conditions.

The command was offered to him on his own
terms, and for three years he was engaged in as
trying and perplexing a business as could well be
committed to a young man of twenty-three to
twenty-six years of age. He did not know it at
the time, but we see now that he was attending a
school of the severest sort in preparation for the
arduous task which was to be set him later in life.

His headquarters were at Winchester, where he

96 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

had the active support of his old friend Lord Fair-
fax. As soon as he had effected some sort of
organization, he sent out recruiting officers and
did his best to fill up the ranks of his little army.
Then he was off on a tour of inspection, visiting
the outposts and making himself acquainted, by
personal observation, with all the details of his
command.

Everything seemed to be against him, and every
advantage which he gained was won only by the
most determined effort. He must often have
thought with envy of the profusion of military
stores of all kinds with which Braddock's army
was provided, and of the abundant money in the
hands of the paymaster. Here was he, obliged to
use the strictest economy if he would make the
money which the burgesses doled out answer the
needs of his command, and he was forced to be
his own commissary and quartermaster, laiyng in
stores and buying cattle up and down the country.
"At the repeated instance of the soldiers," he
writes once to the Speaker of the House, " I must
pay so much regard to their representations, as
to transmit their complaints. They think it ex-
tremely hard, as it is indeed, sir, that they, who
perhaps do more duty, and undergo more fatigue
and hardship from the nature of the service and
situation of the country, should be allowed the
least pay, and smallest encouragements in other
respects. Our soldiers complain that their pay is

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF VIRGINIA. 97

insufficient even to furnish shoes, shirts, and stock-
ings, which their officers, in order to keep them
fit for duty, oblige them to provide. This, they
say, deprives them of the means of purchasing any
of the conveniences or accessories of life, and com-
pels them to drag through a disagreeable service,
in the most disagreeable manner. That their pay
will not afford more than enough to keep them in
clothes, I should be convinced for these reasons,
if experience had not taught me. The British
soldiers are allowed eight pence sterling per day,
with many necessaries that ours are not, and can
buy what is requisite upon the cheapest terms ;
and they lie one half the year in camp or garri-
son, when they cannot consume the fifth part of
what ours do in continual marches over mountains,
rocks, and rivers. . . . And I dare say you will
be candid enough to allow that few men would
choose to have their lives exposed to the incessant
insults of a merciless enemy, without some view
or hope of reward."

But his difficulties with regard to money and
supplies were as nothing to those which he endured
when seeking to raise men, and to control them.
His recruiting officers were negligent. " Several
officers," he writes at one time, " have been out
six weeks, or two months, without getting a man,
spending their time in all the gayety of pleasur-
able mirth, with their relations and friends ; not
attempting nor having a possible chance to recruit

98 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

any but those who, out of their inclination to the
service, will proffer themselves." At one time,
when the Shenandoah Valley was in imminent
danger from Indians, he called upon Lord Fairfax
and other officers of the militia to put forth
special efforts to bring together all the men they
could raise for an expedition to go out and scour
the country, and when the day came, after all the
drumming and beating up of recruits, only fifteen
appeared !

Nor, after he had his men, could he bring them
under regular discipline. He had seen something
of the order which prevailed under English offi-
cers, and it brought into stronger contrast the
loose, independent ways of the Virginia militia,
where the men had very little notion of obedience,
and regarded an order as a request which they
could attend to or not as suited their convenience.
All this was exasperating enough to a high-spirited
commander, who knew that no effective military
work could be done when there was such a spirit,
and Washington prevailed upon the legislature to
enact a more stringent code of laws, which gave
more power to the commander, and compelled the
soldier to obey at risk of severe penalty. To ac-
complish this, he had to visit Williamsburg and
labor with the members of the legislature individ-
ually.

There is no doubt that Washington had very
troublesome material to make into soldiers, and

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF VIRGINIA. 99

that, as a young commander, he was incensed by
their conduct, and ready to be very summary with
them. As a military man, he was also greatly an-
noyed by the indifferent manner in which he was
supported by the country people whom he was
engaged in protecting. One reason lay in the pe-
culiar life of Virginia. When an ignorant white
man found himself under strict orders, he resented
it, because he thought it placed him on a level
with negro slaves. Then there was no class of
intelligent, hard-working mechanics, from which
soldiers could be drafted. The planters' sons were
ready to be officers, but they did not care about
being privates. The better men in the ranks were
drawn from the hardy backwoodsmen, whose life
was a free, self-reliant one. In fact, the stubborn
burgesses and independent soldiers were made
stubborn and independent by the life in America
which several generations of planters and frontiers-
men had been living. Washington was too near
these people to understand this at the time, but
we can see that his troublesome soldiers were the
stuff out of which the fighting armies of the war
for independence were made.

The old trouble between provincial officers and
those appointed by the king continued ; and
Washington found himself balked in his plans by
a little whipper-snapper of a captain, who was
posted at Fort Cumberland and refused to take
orders from him. Even the governor was timidly

100 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

unwilling to sustain the commander-in-chief, and
in order to set the matter at rest, for the case was
one which involved much, Washington made a
journey to Boston to consult with Governor Shir-
ley, who at that time was at the head of all the
British forces in America.

This journey of seven weeks, taken on horse-
back in the middle of winter, was the first which *
the young Virginian had taken to the northward.
His route lay through Philadelphia, New York,
New London, and Newport ; and everywhere that
he went he was received with great attention. He
obtained without difficulty the support of Gov-
ernor Shirley, and had a long and thorough con-
ference with him upon the plans of the approach-
ing campaign. In one thing, however, he was dis-
appointed. He had hoped to obtain a commission
from the governor, as the king's representative,
making him an officer in the regular army. He
sought this more than once, but never obtained it.
So much the better, we think, for America. Had
Washington received such a commission and risen
to the position in the British army which his genius
would have commanded, tie might not have served
against his country, but it is not likely that he
would have served for it as he did.

Then he had unceasing trouble with Governor
Dinwiddie. The governor was a fussy, opinion-
ated man, who showed much zeal in the defense
of Virginia, but not always a zeal according to

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF VIRGINIA. 101

knowledge. He was constantly proposing im-
practicable schemes, and it required great patience
and ingenuity on the part of Washington to per-
suade the governor out of his plans without per-
petually coming into open conflict with him. He
learned the part of the wise man who goes around
a difficulty if possible, rather than over it.

The position in which Washington stood during
these three years was indeed a very trying one.
He was expected to defend the western border of
Virginia against the incursions of the Indians,
aided by the French, who grew more audacious
after the defeat of Braddock. Yet he had, as it
were, neither men nor money at his command, and
the governor and burgesses, to whom he looked
for aid, were quarreling at the other end of the
province. His neighbors and friends gave him
some help, but there were only a few who really
stood by him in all weathers. More than once he
was on the point of resigning a position which
brought him scarcely anything but disappoint-
ment ; but he was prevented by the urgency of his
friends and by the crying needs of the settlers on
the frontiers. If he failed them, who would pro-
tect them ? And so this young man of twenty-four
kept his post and worked month after month to
secure peace and safety for them. How strongly
he felt may be seen by a letter which he wrote to
Governor Dinwiddie at the time of their sorest
need : —

102 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

" Your Honor may see to what unhappy straits the
distressed inhabitants and myself are reduced. I am
too little acquainted, Sir, with pathetic language to at-
tempt a description of the people's distresses, though I
have a generous soul, sensible of wrongs, and swelling
for redress. But what can I do ? I see their situation,
know their danger, and participate in their sufferings,
without having it in my power to give them further
relief than uncertain promises. In short, I see inevita-
ble destruction in so clear a light that, unless vigorous
measures are taken by the Assembly, and speedy assist-
ance sent from below, the poor inhabitants that are now
in forts must unavoidably fall, while the remainder are
flying before the barbarous foe. In fine, the melan-
choly situation of the people, the little prospect of as-
sistance, the gross and scandalous abuses cast upon
the officers in general, which is reflecting upon me in
particular, for suffering misconduct of such extraordi-
nary kinds, and the distant prospect, if any, of gaining
honor and reputation in the service, — cause me to
lament the hour that gave me a commission, and would
induce me at any other time than this of imminent dan-
ger, to resign, without one hesitating moment, a com-
mand, from which I never expect to reap either honor
or benefit ; but, on the contrary, have almost an abso-
lute certainty of incurring displeasure below [that is, at
Williamsburg and in the older parts of the province],
while the murder of helpless families may be laid to my
account here. The supplicating tears of the women and
the moving petitions of the men melt me into such
deadly sorrow, that I solemnly declare, if I know my
own mind, I could offer myself a willing sacrifice to the

COMMANDER IN-CHIEF OF VIRGINIA. 103

butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to
the people's ease."

It is no wonder that the constant anxiety and
hardship which he endured undermined his health,
and that for four months he was obliged to give up
his command and retire to Mount Vernon. Upon
his recovery, a brighter prospect opened. Din-
widdie was recalled and a more sensible lieutenant-
governor took his place. Best of all, Mr. Pitt, the
great English statesman, took direction of affairs
in England, and at once planned for the quick
ending of the war with France. He thrust out
inefficient generals, and put the armies in America
into the hands of resolute, able men. He won
over the colonies by a hearty interest in them, and
by counting on the colonial forces in the coming
campaigns. Then he pushed preparation for at-
tacking the French in their strongholds.

Washington was overjoyed at the news of an-
other movement against Fort Duquesne. Virginia
raised two regiments to add to the British regulars,
who were under the command of General Forbes.
Washington was to be at the head of one of
these regiments, while still retaining his position
as Commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces. He
was in hearty accord with the English officers and
with the new governor, and he was at last with
men who understood his value and listened with
respect to his judgment. It is a great moment in
a young man's life when older men turn to him for

104 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

counsel, and if he has won his knowledge by solid
experience, he is not likely to have his head turned
by such attention. Washington had borne neg-
lect and misunderstanding ; he had been left to
work out his plans by himself, and had for nearly
three years been learning to rely upon himself,
since there was no one else on whom he could lean.
So he had become strong, and other men now
leaned on him.

He was kept busy for some time at Winchester,
collecting men and material, and at last marched
to Fort Cumberland at the head of his forces.
The expedition against Fort Duquesne was a dif-
ferent affair from that undertaken by Braddock.
A lesson had been learned, and Washington was
in a position now, not only to advise, but to carry
out plans. Braddock had refused to listen to his
advice, but Forbes and the other officers not only
listened, but gave him the lead in many things.
Washington had seen the folly of Braddock's elab-
orate and cumbersome outfit, and had urged him
to move more lightly equipped. Now he had his
way, and he took advantage of his men's lack of
regimental clothing to dress them like Indians.
" If I were left to pursue my own inclinations," he
wrote to the British commander, " I would not
only order the men to adopt the Indian dress, but
cause the officers to do it also, and be the first to
set the example myself. Nothing but the uncer-
tainty of obtaining the general approbation causes

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF VIRGINIA. 105

me to hesitate a moment to leave my regimentals
at this place, and proceed as light as any Indian
in the woods. It is an unbecoming dress, I own,
for an officer ; but convenience rather than show,
I think, should be consulted." Fortunately he did
not have to deal with a pedantic officer. His dress
was approved and became very popular. It " takes
very well here," wrote the British commander,
" and, thank God, we see nothing but shirts and
blankets."

It must not be supposed, however, that all now
went smoothly. On the contrary, Washington
had a bitter disappointment. The general, influ-
enced by the advice of some interested persons,
proposed to cut a new road through Pennsylvania
to Fort Duquesne. Washington remonstrated
with all his might. They already had the old road,
over which troops could be transported quickly
and the expedition be brought to a speedy close.
His remonstrance was in vain, and again he had
to use all his patience and self-command, as he saw
foolish counsels prevail. He was able, however,
to prevent General Forbes from dividing his forces
and sending part by one road, and part by the
other ; and he never indulged in a petty sulking
fit, because his advice was not followed, or showed
one whit less determination to do his part. " I
pray your interest most sincerely with the gen-
eral," he wrote to Colonel Bouquet, of the regular
army, " to get myself and my regiment included

106 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

in the number" [of the advance troops]. "If
any argument is needed to obtain this favor, I
hope without vanity I may be allowed to say that,
from long intimacy with these woods, and frequent
scouting in them, my men are at least as well ac-
quainted with all the passes and difficulties, as any
troops that will be employed."

He had his way in this. He had his way also,
though he cared less for that, in showing the folly
of the course pursued in opening a new road.
However, the expedition succeeded, for when the
general reached Fort Duquesne, the French had
withdrawn their forces to meet a demand else-
where, and had burned the fort.

The English now took possession of that part
of the country. People forgot the mistakes which
had been made. A new fort was built and named
Fort Pitt (whence came the modern name of Pitts-
burgh), and Washington led his men back to Win-
chester.

There was no longer any need of an army to be
kept in the field, now that the French had been
driven from the Ohio Valley, and Washington re-
signed his commission. He had given up any ex-
pectation of receiving a commission in the British
army, and he had indeed no longer a desire to be
a soldier by profession. As with his brother Law-
rence before him, something now occurred in his
life which made it easy for him to be a Virginia
ulanter.

CHAPTEE XII.

WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON.

NEAR the end of May, 1758, Washington was
ordered by the Quartermaster-General of the
British forces to leave Winchester and make all
haste to William sbnrg, there to explain to the
governor and council in what a desperate condi-
tion the Virginia troops were as regarded clothing
and equipments. The army was making ready
for its expedition against Fort Duquesne, and so
urgent was the case that the young commander-
in-chief of the volunteers was sent on this errand.
He was on horseback, for that was the only mode
of travel, and accompanied by Billy Bishop, once
the military servant of General Braddock, but,
since the death of the general, the faithful ser-
vant of the young Virginian aid who had read the
funeral service over his dead master.

The two men had reached Williams Ferry, on
the Pamunkey River, and had crossed on the boat,
when they met Mr. Chamberlayne, a Virginian
gentleman living in the neighborhood. The hos-
pitable planter insisted that Washington should
at once go to his house. It was forenoon, and
dinner would be served as usual, early, and after

108 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

that Colonel Washington could go forward to
Williamsburg, if go he must. Besides all that,
there was a charming young widow at his house
— Colonel Washington must have known her, the
daughter of John Dandridge, and the wife of John
Parke Custis. Virginia hospitality was hard to re-
sist, and Washington yielded. He would stay to
dinner if his host would let him hurry off imme-
diately afterward.

Bishop was bidden to bring his master's horse
around after dinner in good season, and Wash-
ington surrendered himself to his host. Dinner
followed, and the afternoon went by, and Mr.
Chambei'layne was in excellent humor, as he
kept one eye on the restless horses at the door,
and the other on his guests, the tall, Indian-like
officer and the graceful, hazel -eyed, animated
young widow. Sunset came, and still Washing-
ton lingered. Then Mr. Chamberlayne stoutly
declared that no guest was ever permitted to leave
his house after sunset. Mrs. Martha Custis was
not the one to drive the soldier away, and so
Bishop was bidden to take the horses back to the
stable. Not till the next morning did the young
colonel take his leave. Then he dispatched his
business promptly at Williamsburg, and whenever
he could get an hour dashed over to White House,
where Mrs. Custis lived. So prompt was he
about this business, also, that when he returned
to Winchester he had the promise of the young

WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON. 109

widow that she would marry him as soon as the
campaign was over.

So runs the story told by the grandson of Mrs.
Custis, for when she married Washington, January
6, 1759, she had two children, a girl of six and a
boy of four.

Washington took his wife and her little chil-
dren home to Mount Vernon, which was his own,
since Lawrence Washington's only child had died,
and his widow had married again. Martha Custis
added her own large property to her husband's,
and Washington was now a rich man, with large
estates and with plenty to occupy him if he would
devote himself to the care of his property.

From the time of his marriage until his death,
Washington wore a miniature portrait of his wife,
hung from his neck by a gold chain. " My dear
Patsy," he calls her in his letters, and he was
never happier than when living with her in quiet
at Mount Vernon. They never had son or
daughter ; but Washington loved dearly the boy
and girl whom his wife brought to him. The girl
died when she was sixteen ; the boy grew up,
married, and became the father of several chil-
dren.

Washington was broken with grief when his
wife's daughter died, and when the son died, he
adopted as his own the orphan children whom
John Custis left behind.

It was no light matter to be a Virginia planter,

110 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

when one had so high a standard of excellence as
George Washington had. The main crop which
he raised was tobacco, and the immediate atten-
tion which it required was only during a small
part of the year ; but, as we have seen, a success-
ful planter was also a man of business, and really
the governor of a little province. Many planters
contented themselves with leaving the care of their
estates and their negroes to overseers, while they
themselves spent their time in visiting and receiv-
ing visits, in sports, and in politics. That was not
Washington's way. He might easily have done
so, for he had money enough ; but such a life
would have been very distasteful to a man who
had undergone the hardships of a soldier, and
had acquired habits of thoroughness and of love
of work. It would have been no pleasure to
Washington to be idle and self-indulgent, while
seeing his fences tumbling down, and knowing
that he was spending more money for everything
than was necessary. The man who attends to his
own affairs, and sees everything thriving under
wise management, is the most contented man, and
Washington's heart was in his work.

So he looked after everything himself. He
rose early, often before light, when the days were
short. He breakfasted lightly at seven in the
summer and at eight in winter, and after break-
fast was in the saddle visiting the different parts
of his estate, and looking after any improvements

WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON. Ill

he had ordered. He was a splendid horseman
and very fond of breaking in new horses. Din-
ner followed at two o'clock ; he had an early tea ;
and when living at home, he was often in bed by
nine o'clock.

These were regular, old fashioned hours, and
the life which he led enabled him to accomplish a
vast amount. He kept no clerk, but wrote out in
his large round hand all his letters and orders, en-
tered every item in his day-book and ledger, and
was scrupulously exact about every farthing of his
accounts. He did not guess how he stood at any
time, but he knew precisely how last year's crop
compared with this year's ; how many head of
cattle he had ; how many acres he had planted
with tobacco ; what wood he had cut ; and just
what goods he had ordered from London. He
had been appointed by the court, guardian of his
wife's two children, who had inherited property
from their father ; and he kept all their accounts
separate, with the minutest care, for he held a
trust to be sacred.

Twice a year he sent to his agent in London a
list of such articles as he needed ; there were
plows, hoes, spades, and other agricultural imple-
ments ; drugs, groceries of various sorts, clothes
both for his family and for his negroes ; tools,
books, busts, and ornaments ; household furniture,
and linen. Indeed, as one reads the long invoices
which Washington sent to London, he wonders

112 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

how people managed who had to send across the
Atlantic for everything they might possibly need
for the next six months. Then there were special
orders for the children ; for " Master Custis, six
years old," there were, besides Irish holland, fine
cambric, gloves, shoes, stockings, hats, combs, and
brushes, such items as these, — " one pair hand-
some silver shoe and knee buckles, ten shillings'
worth of toys, and six little books, for children
beginning to read ; " while for " Miss Custis, four
years old," were a great variety of clothes, includ-
ing " two caps, two pairs of ruffles, two tuckers,
bibs, and aprons if fashionable," and finally, a
" fashionable dressed baby, ten shillings, and
other toys " to the same amount.

He required his agent to send him, with his bill
for all the goods, the original bills of the mer-
chants who sold the goods to the agent ; then he
copied all these orders and bills, giving every item,
and in this way he had before him in his books an
exact statement, in every particular, of his trans-
actions.

He watched the market closely, and knew just
what the varying price of tobacco was, and what
he might expect for any other goods which he
sent to be sold. He was determined that every-
thing from his plantation should be of value and
should receive its full price. So high a reputation
did he secure for honesty that it was said that
any barrel of flour that bore the brand of George

WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON. 113

Washington, Mount Vernon, was exempted from
the customary inspection in the West Indian
ports.

Like other Virginia planters, Washington was
a slave-holder. All the work on the plantations
was done by slaves, and no other method was sup-
posed possible. Washington was born into a so-
ciety where slaves were held as a matter of course,
and he inherited slaves. At that time the right
to own negroes was scarcely questioned, and slaves
were held throughout the colonies. There are few
things that test the character of a man more than
his treatment of those who are dependent upon
him, — his servants, his workmen, his children.
Washington was a just and a generous master.
He cared for his slaves, not merely because to
have them well and strong was more profitable,
but because without his care they would suffer.
He looked after them in their sickness because he
was humane and compassionate. He also re-
quired good work of them. That was what they
were for — to work; and he knew each man's
capacity. He watched them at their work, and
as they would labor more industriously when he
was looking on, he made up his mind what they
could do, and then expected just so much from
them. But he was fair in all this ; he made allow-
ances for different kinds of work, and tried to be
perfectly just in his requirements.

He even worked with his men, and that was a

114 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

rare thing for a Virginia planter to do. He kept
a diary of his occupation, so that we can follow
the farmer day after day.

This is the busy planter, with his hands full of
work ; but there was another kind of life going on,
not in the quarters, or the field, but in the house.
On rainy days, Washington took down his ledger
and posted it, and worked over his accounts, but
he was also the hospitable gentleman who opened
his doors wide to guests. Not only the neighbor-
ing families, the Fairfaxes, and others came and
went, but the man who had been commander-in-
chief of the Virginia army and the best-known
military man in America, was sure to be visited
by every one of distinction who passed that
way. The governors of Virginia and Maryland
were his guests; and he himself with his beautiful
wife were welcomed at Williamsburg and Annap-
olis and the country-seats of the most notable
people.

He was extremely fond of society. A grave,
silent man himself, he was very gallant and
courtly, and in those days moved through the
stately minuet with a fine air. He admired beau-
tiful women, and he liked to listen to good talk-
ers ; he rarely .laughed loudly, but he had a sly
amusement over ludicrous things ; and while he
kept most people at a 'distance by his serious man-
ners, he had the love of children and young people.
After all, his greatest pleasure was in those sports

WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON. 115

which were akin to work and to that military life
which had been his passion. He was always
ready for a fox-hunt. As in his younger days he
had ridden with Lord Fairfax and the Fairfaxes
of Belvoir, so now, when he was master of Mount
Vernon, he and his friends were always out in the
season, and when night came, the party would
meet at one house or the other, for a merry sup-
per, to be off again behind the hounds early the
next day.

In a letter describing Mount Vernon, Washing-
ton speaks of it as " on one of the finest rivers in
the world ; a river well stocked with various kinds
of fish, at all seasons of the year, and in the spring
with shad, herring, bass, carp, sturgeon, etc., in
great abundance. The borders of the estate are
washed by more than ten miles of tide-water ; sev-
eral valuable fisheries appertain to it ; the whole
shore, in fact, is one entire fishery." Here was
business and sport combined, and it was a great
occasion in the herring season, when the fish came
up in vast shoals, and the negroes turned out to
haul in the seine with its catch. In the season of
canvas-back ducks, also, Washington was out with
his fowling-piece early and late. The story is told
that he had been much annoyed by a lawless fel-
low who came without leave to shoot on the estate.
He crossed over from the Maryland shore, and hid
his boat in one of the creeks. One day Washing-
ton heard the report of a gun, and guessing it to

116 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

be that of this man, who had more than once been
warned to leave, he sprang on his horse and rode
in the direction of the sound. He pushed his way
through the bushes just as the man, who had seen
him approach, was pushing his boat off. The
trespasser raised his gun, and aimed it at Wash-
ington, who spurred his horse at once into the
water and seized the boat before the man knew
what he was about. Then Washington, who had
a powerful arm, seized the fellow and gave him
a sound thrashing, and was never troubled by him
again.

There was always a Washington to surprise
people. There was the still, self -controlled, grave
man, who suddenly flashed forth in a resolute act,
seizing the opportunity, and doing the one thing
which was instantly demanded ; and there was the
quick-tempered, fiery man who held himself in
check, waited for other people to speak and act,
and then came forward with a few plain, deliber-
ate words, which showed that he had grasped the
whole situation, and could be depended on to
carry through his resolution patiently and persist-
ently.

There were, as I have said, few towns in Vir-
ginia. The divisions were by parishes, after the
old English custom, and so when a man was of
importance in his neighborhood he was very apt
to be a vestryman in his parish. Mount Vernon
was in Truro parish, and Washington was a vestry-

WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON. 117

man there, as also in Fairfax parish. It happened
that the church of Truro parish had fallen into
decay, and was in a sorry condition. It was neces-
sary to build a new one, and several meetings were
held, for two parties had sprung up, one wishing
to rebuild on the same spot ; and another urging
some location more convenient to the parishioners,
for the place where the old church had stood was
not a central one. Finally a meeting was called
to settle the matter. One of Washington's friends,
George Mason, a man of fine speech, rose up and
spoke most eloquently in favor of holding to the
old site ; there their fathers had worshiped, and
there had their bodies been laid to rest. Every
one seemed moved and ready to accept Mason's
proposal.

Washington had also come prepared with a
plea. He had not Mason's power of speech, but
he took from his pocket a roll of paper and spread
it before the meeting. On this sheet he had drawn
off a plan of Truro parish ; upon the plan were
marked plainly the site of the old church, the
place where every parishioner lived, and the spot
which he advised as the site for the new church.
He said very little ; he simply showed the people
his survey, and let them see for themselves that
every consideration of convenience and fairness
pointed to the new site as the one to be chosen.
It was central, and no one could fail to see that
the church was first of all for the living. His

118 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

argument was the argument of good sense and
reasonableness, and it carried the day against
Mason's eloquent speech. Pohick Church, which
was built on the new site, was constructed from
plans which Washington himself drew.

CHAPTEE XIII.

A VIRGINIA BURGESS.

BEFORE Washington's marriage, and while he
was in camp near Fort Cumberland, making ac-
tive preparations for the campaign against Fort
Duquesne, there was an election for members of
the Virginia House of Burgesses. Washington of-
fered himself as candidate to the electors of Fred-
erick County, in which Winchester, where he had
been for the past three years, was the principal
town. His friends were somewhat fearful that
the other candidates, who were on the ground,
would have the advantage over Washington, who
was with the army, at a distance ; and they wrote,
urging him to come on and look after his interests.
Colonel Bouquet, under whose orders he was,
cheerfully gave him leave of absence, but Wash-
ington replied : —

" I had, before Colonel Stephen came to this
place, abandoned all thoughts of attending per-
sonally the election at Winchester, choosing rather
to leave the management of that affair to my
friends, than be absent fronj my regiment, when
there is a probability of its being called to duty,
I am much pleased now, that I did so,"

120 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Here was a case where Washington broke his
excellent rule of — " If you want a thing done, do
it yourself." If his regiment was to lie idle at Fort
Cumberland, he could easily have galloped to
Winchester, and have been back in a few days ;
but there was a chance that it might move, and
so he gave up at once all thought of leaving it.
Glad enough he was to have the news confirmed.
To lead his men forward, and to have a hand in
the capture of Fort Duquesne, was the first thing
— the election must take care of itself. This was
not a bad statement for his friends at Winchester
to make. A man who sticks to his post, and does
his duty without regard to his personal interests,
is the very man for a representative in the legisla-
ture. The people of Frederick knew Washington
thoroughly, and though they had sometimes felt
his heavy hand, they gave him a hearty vote, and
he was elected a member of the House of Bur-
gesses.

This was in 1758, and he continued to serve as
a member for the next fifteen years. There is a
story told of his first appearance in the House.
He was something more than a new member ; he
was the late Commander-in-chief of the Virginia
army, the foremost man, in a military way, in the
province ; he had just returned from the successful
expedition against Fort Duquesne. So the House
resolved to welcome him in a manner becoming so
gallant a Virginian, and it passed a vote of thanks

A VIRGINIA BURGESS. . 121

for the distinguished military services he had ren-
dered the country. The Speaker, Mr. Robinson,
rose when Washington came in to take his seat,
and made a little speech of praise and welcome,
presenting the thanks of the House. Every one
applauded and waited for the tall colonel to re-
spond. There he stood, blushing, stammering,
confused. He could give his orders to his men
easily enough, and he could even say what was
necessary to Mrs. Martha Custis ; but to address
the House of Burgesses in answer to a vote of
thanks — that was another matter ! Not a plain
word could he get out. It was a capital answer,
and the Speaker interpreted it to the House.

" Sit down, Mr. Washington," said he. " Your
modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the
power of any language I possess."

It was a trying ordeal for the new member, and
if speech-making had been his chief business in
the House, he would have made a sorry failure.
He rarely made a speech, and never a long one,
but for all that he was a valuable member, and
his reelection at every term showed that the peo-
ple understood his value. If there was any work
to be done, any important committee to be ap-
pointed, Washington could be counted on, and
his sound judgment, his mature experience, and
sense of honor, made his opinion one which every
one respected. He was always on hand, punctual,
and faithful ; and qualities of diligence and fidelity

122 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

in such a place, when combined with sound judg-
ment and honor, are sure to tell in the long run.
He once gave a piece of advice to a nephew who
had also been elected to the House, and it prob-
ably was the result of his own experience and ob-
servation.

" The only advice I will offer," he said, " if you
have a mind to command the attention of the
House, is to speak seldom but on important sub-
jects, except such as particularly relate to your
constituents ; and, in the former case, make your-
self perfect master of the subject. Never exceed
a decent warmth, and submit your sentiments with
diffidence. A dictatorial style, though it may
carry conviction, is always accompanied with dis-
gust."

It was in January, 1759, that Washington took
his seat in the House, and if he made it his
rule " to speak seldom but on -important sub-
jects," he had several opportunities to speak be-
fore he finally left the Virginia legislature for a
more important gathering. The first very im-
portant subject was the Stamp Act, in 1765. The
British government had passed an act requiring
the American colonies to place a stamp upon every
newspaper or almanac that was published, upon
eveiy marriage certificate, every will, every deed,
and upon other legal papers. These stamps were
to be sold by officers of the crown, and the money
obtained by the sale was to be used to pay British

A VIRGINIA BURGESS. 123

soldiers stationed in America to enforce the laws
made by Parliament.

The colonies were aflame with indignation.
They declared that Parliament had no right to
pass such an act ; that the Ministry that proposed
it was about an unlawful business; and that it
was adding insult to injury to send over soldiers
to enforce such laws. People, when they meet on
the corner of the street and discuss public mat-
ters, are usually much more outspoken than when
they meet in legislatures ; but the American colo-
nists were wont to talk very plainly in their as-
semblies, and it was no new thing for the repre-
sentatives, chosen by the people, to be at odds
with the governor, who represented the British
government. So when Patrick Henry rose in
the House of Burgesses, with his resolutions de-
claring that the Stamp Act was illegal, and that
the colony of Virginia had always enjoyed the
right of governing itself, as far as taxation went,
— and when he made a flaming speech which
threatened the ' king, there was great confusion ;
and though his resolutions were passed, there was
but a bare majority.

There is no record of what Washington may
have said or how he voted on that occasion, but
his letters show that he thought the Stamp Act a
very unwise proceeding on the part of Great Brit-
ain, and a piece of oppression. " That act," he
says, " could be looked upon in no other light by

124 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

every person who would view it in its proper
colors." But he did not rush into a passion over
it. Instead, he studied it coolly, and before it was
repealed wrote at some length to his wife's uncle,
who was living in London, his reasons for think-
ing that the British ministry would gain nothing
by pressing the Stamp Act and other laws which
bore hard on colonial prosperity ; for he held that
if they would only see it, the colonies were as nec-
essary to England as England was to the colonies.
It is difficult for us to-day to put ourselves in
the place of Washington and other men of his
time. Washington was a Virginian, and was one
of the legislature. He was used to making laws
and providing for the needs of the people of Vir-
ginia, but he was accustomed to look beyond Vir-
ginia to England. There the king was, and he
was one of the subjects of the king. The king's
officers came to Virginia, and when Washington
saw, as he so often did, a British man-of-war lying
in the river off Mount Vernon, his mind was
thrilled with pleasure as he thought of the power
of the empire to which he belonged. He had seen
the British soldiers marching against the French,
and he had himself served under a British general.
He had an ardent desire to go to England, to see
London, to see the king and his court, and Par-
liament, and the Courts of Justice, and the great
merchants who made the city famous ; but as yet
he had been unable to go.

A VIRGINIA BURGESS. 125

He had seen but little of the other colonies. He
had made a journey to Boston, and that had given
him some acquaintance with men ; but wherever
he went, he found people looking eagerly toward
England and asking what the ministry there would
do about fighting the French on the Western bor-
ders. Though he and others might never have
seen England, it was the centre of the world to
them. He thought of the other colonies not so
much as all parts of one great country on this side
of the Atlantic, as each separately a part of the
British Empire.

After all, however, and most of all, he was a
Virginian. In Virginia he owned land. There
was his home, and there his occupation. He was
a farmer, a planter of tobacco and wheat, and it
was his business to sell his products. As for the
French, they were enemies of Great Britain, but
they were also very near enemies of Virginia.
They were getting possession of land in Virginia
itself — land which Washington owned in part ;
and when he was busily engaged in driving them
out, he did not have to stop and think of France,
he needed only to think of Fort Duquesne, a few
days' march to the westward.

When, therefore he found the British govern-
ment making laws which made him pay roundly
for sending his tobacco to market, and taxing him
as if there were no Virginia legislature to say
what taxes the people could and should pay, he

126 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

began to be restless and dissatisfied. England
was a great way off ; Virginia was close at hand.
He was loyal to the king and had fought under
the king's officers, but if the king cared nothing
for his loyalty, and only wanted his pence, his
loyalty was likely to cool. His chief resentment,
however, was against Parliament. Parliament
was making laws and laying taxes. But what
was Parliament ? It was a body of law-makers in
England, just as the House of Burgesses was in
Virginia. To be sure, it could pass laws about
navigation which concerned all parts of the Brit-
ish Empire ; but, somehow, it made these laws
very profitable to England and very disadvan-
tageous to Virginia. Parliament, however, had no
right to pass such a law as the Stamp Act. That
was making a special law for the American col-
onies, and taking away a right which belonged to
the colonial assemblies.

Washington had grown up with an intense love
of law, and in this he was like other American
Englishmen. In England there were vei-y few
persons who made the laws, the vast majority had
nothing to do but to obey the laws. Yet it is
among the makers of laws that the love of law
prevails ; and since in America a great many moi'e
Englishmen had to do with government in colony
and in town than in England, there were more
who passionately insisted upon the law being ob-
served. An unlawful act was to them an outrage.

A VIRGINIA BURGESS. 127

When they said that England was oppressing
them, and making them slaves, they did not mean
that they wanted liberty to do what they pleased,
but that they wanted to be governed by just laws,
made by the men who had the right to make laws.
And that right belonged to the legislatures, to
which they sent representatives.

So it was out of his love of law and justice that
Washington and others protested against the
Stamp Act ; and when the act was repealed they
threw up their hats and hurrahed, not because
they now should not have to buy and use stamps,
but because by repealing the act Parliament had
as much as said that it was an unlawful act. How-
ever, this was an unwilling admission on the part
of Parliament, which repealed the act, but said at
once : " We can tax you if we choose to."

In fact, Parliament stupidly tried soon after to
prove that it had the right by imposing duties on
tea, paper, glass, and painters' colors. But the
people in the colonies were on the alert. They
had really been governing themselves so long that
now, when Parliament tried to get the power away
from them, they simply went on using their power.
They did this in two ways ; the colonial govern-
ments again asserted their rights in the case, and
the people began to form associations, in which
they bound themselves not to buy goods of Eng-
land until the offensive act was repealed. This
latter was one of the most interesting movements

128 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

in the breaking away of the colonies from Eng-
land. It was a popular movement; it did not
depend upon what this or that colonial assembly
might do ; it was perfectly lawful, and so far as
it was complete it was effective. Yet all the while
the movement was doing more, and what but a
very few detected ; it was binding the scattered
people in the colonies together.

Washington took a great deal of interest in
these associations, and belonged to one himself.
He was growing exceedingly impatient of English
misrule, and saw clearly to what it was leading.
" At a time," he says, " when our lordly masters
in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less
than the deprivation of American freedom, it
seems highly necessary that something should be
done to avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty
which we have derived from our ancestors. But
the manner of doing it to answer the purpose
effectually is the point in question. That 110 man
should scruple, or hesitate a moment, to use arms
in defense of so valuable a blessing, is clearly my
opinion. Yet arms, I would beg leave to add,
should be the last resort. We have already, it is
said, proved the inefficacy of addresses to the
throne, and remonstrances to Parliament. How
far, then, their attention to our rights and privi-
leges is to be awakened or alarmed by starving
their trade and manufactures remains to be tried."

He took the lead in forming: an association in

A VIRGINIA BURGESS. 129

Virginia, and he kept scrupulously to his agree-
ment ; for when he sent his orders to London, he
was very careful to instruct his correspondents to
send him none of the goods unless the Act of Par-
liament had meantime been repealed. As the
times grew more exciting, Washington watched
events steadily. He took no step backward, but
he moved forward deliberately and with firmness.
He did not allow himself to be carried away by
the passions of the time. It was all very well,
some said, to stop buying from England, but let
us stop selling also. They need our tobacco.
Suppose we refuse to send it unless Parliament
repeals the act. Washington stood out against
that except as a final resource, and for the reason
which he stated in a letter : —

" I am convinced, as much as I am of my own exist-
ence, that there is no relief for us but in their distress ;
and I think, at least I hope, that there is public virtue
enough left among us to deny ourselves everything but
the bare necessaries of life to accomplish this end. This
we have a right to do, and no power upon earth can
compel us to do otherwise, till it has first reduced us to
the most abject state of slavery. The stopping of our
exports would, no doubt, be a shorter method than the
other to effect this purpose ; but if we owe money to
Great Britain, nothing but the last necessity can justify
the non-payment of it ; and. therefore, I have great
doubts upon this head, and wish to see the other method
first tried, which is legal and will facilitate these pay-
ments."

130 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

That is, by the economy necessarily preached,
the people would save money with which to pay
their debts.

Washington had been at the front in the House
of Burgesses, in his own county, and among the
people generally. He was a member of the con-
vention called to meet at Williamsburg ; and he
was appointed by that convention one of seven
delegates to attend the first Continental Congress
at Philadelphia.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

NEAR the end of August, 1774, Patrick Henry
and Edmund Pendleton, two of the delegates from
Virginia to the first Continental Congress, rode
from their homes to Mount Vernon and made
a short visit. Then, on the last day of the month,
Washington mounted his horse also, and the three
friends started for Philadelphia to attend the Con-
gress, which was called to meet on the 5th of
September. Pendleton was a dozen years older
than Washington, and Henry was the youngest of
the party. He was the most fiery in speech, and
more than once, in recent conventions, had carried
his hearers away by his bold words. He was the
most eloquent man in the colonies, — of rude ap-
pearance, but when once wrought up by excite-
ment, able to pour out a torrent of words.

For my part, I would rather have heard the
speech which Washington made at the convention
in Williamsburg in the August before, when he
rose to read the resolution which he and his
neighbors had passed at their meeting in Fairfax
County. The eloquence of a man who is a famous
orator is not quite so convincing as that of a man

132 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

of action, who rarely speaks, but who is finally
stirred by a great occasion. People were used to
hearing Washington say a few words in a slow,
hesitating, deliberate way ; and they knew that
he had carefully considered beforehand what
words he should use. But this time he was terri-
bly in earnest, and when he had read the resolu-
tion, he spoke as no one had heard him before.
He was a passionate man, who had his anger under
control ; but when it occasionally burst out, it was
as if a dam to a stream had given way. And now
he was consumed with indignation at the manner
in which Great Britain was treating the colonies.
He was ready, he said, to raise a regiment of a
thousand men, pay all their expenses, and lead
them to Boston to drive out the king's soldiers.

The three men, therefore, must have talked
long and earnestly as they rode to Philadelphia ;
for the Congress which they were to attend was
the first one to which all the colonies were invited
to send delegates. It was to consider the cause
of the whole people, and Virginia was to see in
Massachusetts not a rival colony, but one with
which she had common cause. The last time
Washington had gone over the road he had been
on an errand to the king's chief representative in
America, the commander-in-chief, Governor Shir-
ley, and one matter which he had held very much
at heart had been his own commission as an offi-
cer in his Majesty's army. He was on a different

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 133

errand now. Still, like the men who were most
in earnest at that time, he was thinking how the
colonies could secure their rights as colonies, not
how they might break away from England and
set up for themselves.

They were five days on the road, and on Sep-
tember the 4th they breakfasted near New Castle,
in Delaware, dined at Chester, in Pennsylvania,
and in the evening were in Philadelphia, at the
City Tavern, which stood on Second Street, above
Walnut Street, and was the meeting-place of most
of the delegates. Washington, however, though
he was often at the City Tavern, had his lodging
at Dr. Shippen's. The Congress met the next
day at Carpenters' Hall, and was in session for
seven weeks. The first two or three days were
especially exciting to the members. There they
were, fifty-one men, from all the colonies save
Georgia, met to consult together — Englishmen
who sang " God save the king," but asked also
what right the king had to act as he had done
toward Boston. They did not know one another
well at the beginning. There was no man among
them who could be called famous beyond his own
colony, unless it were George Washington. Up to
this time the different colonies had lived so apart
from one another, each concerned about its own
affairs, that there had been little opportunity for
a man to be widely known.

So, as they looked at one another at the City

134 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Tavern, or at Carpenters' Hall when they met,
each man was wondering who would take the
lead. Virginia was the largest and most im-
portant colony. Massachusetts had a right to
speak, because she had called the convention, and
because it was in Boston that the people were suf-
fering most from the action of the British Par-
liament. Perhaps the two most conspicuous
members at first were Patrick Henry of Virginia,
and Samuel Adams of Massachusetts ; but in the
seven weeks of the session, others showed their
good judgment and patriotism. Patrick Henry
was asked after he returned to Virginia whom he
considered the greatest man in the Congress, and
he replied : " If you speak of eloquence, Mr. Rut-
ledge of South Carolina is by far the greatest
orator ; but if you speak of solid information and
sound judgment, Colonel Washington is unques-
tionably the greatest man on the floor."

Washington carried on the methods which he
had always practiced. He attended the sessions
punctually and regularly ; he listened to what
others had to say, and gave his own opinion only
after he had carefully formed it. It is an ex-
ample of the thoroughness with which he made
himself master of every subject, that he used to
copy in his own hand the important papers which
were laid before Congress, such as the petition to
the king which was agreed upon. This he would
do deliberately and exactly, — it was like commit-

SAMUEL ADAMS.

TEE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 135

ting the paper to memory. Besides this, he made
abstracts of other papers, stating the substance of
them in a few clear words.

The greater part of each day was occupied in
the Congress, but besides the regular business,
there was a great deal of informal talk among the
members. They were full of the subject, and
used to meet to discuss affairs at dinner, or in
knots about the fire at the City Tavern. Phila-
delphia was then the most important city in the
country, and there were many men of wide expe-
rience living in it. Washington went everywhere
by invitation. He dined with the Chief Justice,
with the Mayor, and with all the notable people.

In this way he was able to become better ac-
quainted both with the state of affairs in other
colonies and with the way the most intelligent
people were thinking about the difficulties of the
time. The first Continental Congress gave ex-
pression to the deliberate judgment of the colonies
upon the acts of Great Britain. It protested
against the manner in which Parliament was
treating the colonies. It declared firmly and sol-
emnly that as British subjects the people of the
colonies owed no allegiance to Parliament, in
which they had no representatives ; that their
own legislatures alone had the right to lay taxes.
But after all, the great advantage of this first
Congress was in the opportunity which it gave
for representatives from the different colonies to

136 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

become acquainted with one another, and thus to
make all parts of the country more ready to act
together.

It was onh now and then that any one siiggested
the independence of the colonies. Washington,
like a few others, thought it possible the colonies
might have to arm and resist the unlawful attempt
to force unconstitutional laws upon them ; but he
did not, at this time, go so far as to propose a
separation from England. He had a friend among
the British officers in Boston, one of his old com-
rades in the war against France, a Captain Mac-
kenzie, who wrote to him. complaining of the way
the Boston people were behaving. Captain Mac-
kenzie, very naturally, as an officer, saw only a
troublesome, rebellious lot of people whom it was
the business of the army to put down. Washing-
ton wrote earnestly to him, trying to show him the
reason why the people felt as they did, and the
wrong way of looking at the subject which Captain
Mackenzie and other officers had. He expressed
his sorrow that fortune should have placed his
friend in a service that was sure to bring down
vengeance upon those engaged in it. He went on :

" I do not mean by this to insinuate that an officer is
not to discharge his duty, even when chance, not choice,
has placed him in a disagreeable situation ; but I con-
ceive, when you condemn the conduct of the Massachu-
setts people, you reason from effects, not causes ; other-
wise you would not wonder at a people, who are every

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 137

day receiving fresh proofs of a systematic assertion of
an arbitrary power, deeply planned to overturn the laws
and constitution of their country, and to violate the
most essential and valuable rights of mankind, being
irritated, and with difficulty restrained from acts of the
greatest violence and intemperance. For my own part,
I confess to you candidly, that I -view things in a very
different point of light from the one in which you seem
to consider them ; and though you are taught by venal
men ... to believe that the people of Massachusetts
are rebellious, setting up for independency, and what
not, give me leave, my good friend, to tell you, that you
are abused, grossly abused. . . . Give me leave to add,
and I think I can announce it as a fact, that it is not
the wish or interest of that government, or any other
upon this continent, separately or collectively, to set up
for independence ; but this you may at the same time
rely on, that none of them will ever submit to the loss
of those valuable rights and privileges which are essen-
tial to the happiness of every free state, and without
which, life, liberty, and property are rendered totally
insecure."

It was with such a belief as this that Washing-
ton went back to Mount Vernon, and while he was
occupied with his engrossing private affairs, busied
himself also with organizing and drilling soldiers.
Independent companies were formed all over Vir-
ginia, and one after another placed themselves
under his command. Although, by the custom
of those companies, each was independent of the
others, yet by choosing the same commander they

138 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

virtually made Washington commander-in-chief
of the Virginia volunteers. He was the first mili-
tary man in the colony, and every one turned to
him for advice and instruction. So through the
winter and spring he was constantly on the move,
going to one place after another to review the
companies which had been formed.

I think that winter and spring of 1775 must
have been a somewhat sorrowful one to George
Washington, and that he must have felt as if a
great change were coming in his life. His wife's
daughter had died, and he missed! her sadly.
Young John Custis had married and gone away
to live. The sound of war was heard on all
sides, and among the visitors to Mount Vernon
were some who afterward were to be generals in
the American army. He still rode occasionally
after the hounds, but the old days of fun were
gone. George William Fairfax had gone back
to England, and the jolly company at Belvoir was
scattered. The house itself there had caught fire
and burned to the ground.

But the time for action was at hand. Washing-
ton turned from his home and his fox-hunting to
go to Richmond as a delegate to a second Virginia
convention. It was called to hear the reports of
the delegates to Philadelphia and to see what fur-
ther was to be done. It was clear to some, and to
Washington among them, that the people must be
ready for the worst. They had shown themselves in

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 139

earnest by all the training they had been going
through as independent companies. Now let
those companies be formed into a real army. It
was idle to send any more petitions to the king.

" We must fight ! " exclaimed Patrick Henry ;
" I repeat it, sir ; we must fight ! An appeal to
arms and the God of Hosts is all that is left us ! "

A committee, of which Washington was one,
was appointed to report a plan for an army of
Virginia.

But when people make up their minds to fight,
they know very well, if they are sensible, that
more than half the task before them is to find
means for feeding and clothing not only the troops
but the people who are dependent on the troops.
Therefore the convention appointed another com-
mittee, of which Washington also was a member,
to devise a plan for encouraging manufactures, so
that the people could do without England. Here-
tofore, the Virginians had done scarcely any man-
ufacturing ; nearly everything they needed they
had bought from England with tobacco. But if
they were to be at war with England, they must
be making ready to provide for themselves. It
was late in the day to do anything ; slavery,
though they did not then see it clearly, had made
a variety of industries impossible. However, the
people were advised to form associations to pro-
mote the raising of wool, cotton, flax, and hemp,
and to encourage the use of home manufactures.

140 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Washington was again chosen one of the dele-
gates to the Continental Congress, for the second
Congress had been called to meet at Philadelphia.
He was even readier to go than before. On the
day when he was chosen, he wrote to his brother
John Augustine Washington : " It is my full in-
tention to devote my life and fortune to the cause
we are engaged in, if needful."

That was at the end of March. The second
Continental Congress was to meet on May 10 ;
and just before Washington left Mount Vernon
came the news of Lexington and Concord. Curi-
ously enough, the governor of Virginia had done
just what Governor Gage had attempted to do;
he had seized some powder which was stored at
Fredericksburg, and placed it for safety on board
a vessel of the British navy. The independent
companies at once met and called upon Washing-
ton to take command of them, that they might
compel the governor to restore the powder.
Washington kept cool. The governor promised
to restore the powder, and Washington advised
the people to wait to see what Congress would do.

When Congress met, the men who came to-
gether were no longer strangers to one another.
They had parted warm friends the previous fall ;
they had gone to their several homes and now had
come back more determined than ever, and more
united. Every one spoke of Lexington and Con-
cord ; and the Massachusetts men told how large

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 141

an army had already gathered around Boston.
But it was an army made up not only of Massa-
chusetts men, but of men from Connecticut, Rhode
Island, and New Hampshire. It was plain that
there must be some authority over such an army,
and the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts
wrote to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia,
advising that body to assume control of all the
forces, to raise a continental army, appoint a com-
mander, and do whatever else was necessary to
prepare for war. There had already been fight-
ing ; there was an army ; and it was no longer a
war between Massachusetts and Great Britain.

I do not know what other delegates to the Con-
gress at Philadelphia came as soldiers, but there
was one tall Virginian present who wore his mili-
tary coat ; and when the talk fell upon appointing
a commander, all eyes were turned toward him.
Every one, however, felt the gravity and delicacy
of the situation. Here was an army adopted by
Congress ; but it was a New England army, and
if the struggle were to come at Boston, it was natu-
ral that the troops should mainly come from that
neighborhood. The colonies were widely sepa-
rated ; they had not acted much together. Would
it not be better, would it not save ill-feeling, if a
New England man were to command this New
England army?

There were some who thought thus ; and besides,
there was still a good deal of difference of opinion

142 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

as to the course to be pursued. Some were ready
for independence; others, and perhaps the most,
hoped to bring the British to terms. Parties
were rising in Congress ; petty jealousies were
showing themselves, when suddenly John Adams
of Massachusetts, seeing into what perplexities
they were drifting, came forward with a distinct
proposition that Congress should adopt the army
before Boston and appoint a commander. He did
not name Washington, but described him as a cer-
tain gentleman from Virginia " who could unite
the cordial exertions of all the colonies better
than any other person." No one doubted who was
meant, and Washington, confused and agitated,
left the room at once.

Nothing else was now talked of. The delegates
discussed the matter in groups and small circles,
and a few days afterward a Maryland delegate
formally nominated George Washington to be
commander-in-chief of the American army. He
was unanimously elected, but the honor of bringing
him distinctly before the Congress belongs to John
Adams. It seems now a very natural thing to do,
but really it was something which required wisdom
and courage. When one sums up all Washing-
ton's military experience at this time, it was not
great, or such as to point him out as unmistakably
the leader of the American army. There was a
general then in command at Cambridge, who had
seen more of war than Washington had. But

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 143

Washington was the leading military man in Vir-
ginia, and it was for this reason that John Adarns,
as a New England man, urged his election. The
Congress had done something to bring the colonies
together ; the war was to do. more, but probably
no single act really had a more far-reaching sig-
nificance in making the Union, than the act of
nominating the Virginian Washington by the New
England Adams.

CHAPTER XV.

UNDER THE OLD ELM.

*

IT was on the 15th day of June, 1775, that
George Washington was chosen commander-in-
chief of the American array. The next day he
made his answer to Congress, in which he de-
clared that he accepted the office, but that he
would take no pay ; he would keep an exact ac-
count of his expenses, but he would give his ser-
vices to his country. There was no time to be
lost. He could not go home to bid his wife good-
by, and he did not know when he would see her
again, so he wrote her as follows : —

" PHILADELPHIA. 18th June, 1775.

" MY DEAREST : I am now set down to write to
you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible
concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and in-
creased when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it
will give you. It has been determined in Congress
that the whole army raised for the defense of the
American cause shall be put under my care, and that
it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston
to take upon me the command of it.

" You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I as-
sure you in the most solemn manner, that, so far from

UNDER THE OLD ELM. 145

seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavor
in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwilling-
ness to part with you and the family, but from a con-
sciousness of it being a trust too great for my capacity,
and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one
month with you at home than I have the most distant
prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven
times seven years. But, as it has been a kind of des-
tiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope
that my undertaking it is designed to answer some
good purpose. You might, and I suppose did perceive,
from the tenor of my letters, that I was apprehensive
I could not avoid this appointment, as I did not pre-
tend to intimate when I should return. That was the
case. It was utterly out of my power to refuse this
appointment, without exposing my character to such
censures as would have reflected dishonor upon myself
and given pain to my friends."

That is to say, he could not refuse the appoint-
ment without laying himself open to the charge
of being a coward and afraid to run the risk, or a
selfish man who preferred his own ease and com-
fort. He was neither. He was a courageous
man, as he had always shown himself to be, and
he was unselfish, for he was giving up home and
property, and undertaking a life of the greatest
difficulty in the service of — what ? His coun-
try ? Yes. But we must remember that Virginia
was his country more than all the colonies were,
and at present it was only Massachusetts that
stood in peril. Of course every one is impelled

146 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

to do great things by more than one motive.
Washington was a soldier, and his blood tingled
as he thought of being commander-in-chief, and
doing the most that a soldier could ; but he was,
above all, a man who had a keen sense of right
and wrong. He saw that England was wrong
and was doing injustice to America. The injus-
tice did not at once touch him as a planter, as a
man who was making money ; it touched him as
a free man who was obedient to the laws ; and he
was ready to give up everything to help right the
wrongs.

Washington left Philadelphia on his way to
Boston, June 21, escorted by a troop of horsemen,
and accompanied by Schuyler and Lee, who had
just been made major-generals by Congress. They
had gone about twenty miles when they saw a man
on horseback coming rapidly down the road. It
was a messenger riding post-haste to Philadelphia,
and carrying to Congress news of the battle of
Bunker Hill. Everybody was stirred by the news
and wanted to know the particulars.

" Why were the Provincials compelled to re-
treat ? " he was asked.

" It was for want of ammunition," he replied.

" Did they stand the fire of the regular troops ? "
asked Washington anxiously.

" That they did, and held their own fire in re-
serve until the enemy was within eight rods."

" Then the liberties of the country are safe ! "

UNDER THE OLD ELM, 147

exclaimed Washington. He remembered well
the scenes under Braddock, and he knew what a
sight it must have been to those New England
farmers when a compact body of uniformed sol-
diers came marching up from the boats at Charles-
town. If they could stand fearlessly, there was
stuff in them to make soldiers of.

All along the route the people in the towns
turned out to see Washington's cavalcade, and at
Newark a committee of the New York Provincial
Congress met to escort him to the city. There he
left General Schuyler in command, and hurried
forward to Cambridge, for the news of Bunker
Hill made him extremely anxious to reach the
army.

In New England, the nearer he came to the
seat of war, the more excited and earnest he
found the people. At every town he was met by
the citizens and escorted through that place to the
next. This was done at New Haven. The colle-
gians all turned out, and they had a small band
of music, at the head of which, curiously enough,
was a freshman who afterward made some stir in
the world. It was Noah Webster, the man of spell-
ing-book and dictionary fame. At Springfield,
the party was met by a committee of the Provin-
cial Congress of Massachusetts, and at last, on
the 2d of July, he came to Watertown, where he
was welcomed by the Provincial Congress itself,
which was in session there.

148 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon of the
same day that Washington rode into Cambridge,
escorted by a company of citizens. As he drew
near Cambridge Common, cannon were fired to
welcome him, and the people in Boston must have
wondered what had happened. The Provincial
Congress had set apart for his use the house of the
president of Harvard College, reserving only one
room for the president ; but this house was prob-
ably too small and inconvenient ; for shortly af-
terward Washington was established in the great
square house, on the way to Watertown, which
had been deserted by a rich Tory, and there he
stayed as long as he was in Cambridge. By good
fortune, years afterward, the poet Longfellow
bought the house, and so the names of Washing-
ton and Longfellow have made it famous.

On the morning of the next day, which was
Monday, July 3, 1775, Washington, with Lee and
other officers, rode into camp. Cambridge Com-
mon was not the little place it now is, hemmed in
by streets. It stretched out toward the country,
and a country ro'ad ran by its side, leading to
Watertown. An Episcopal church stood opposite
the Common, and a little farther on, just as the
road turned, nearly at a right angle, stood an old
house. In front of this house, at the corner of
the Voad, was a stout elm-tree. It was a warm
summer morning, and the officers were glad of
the shade of the tree.

UNDER THE OLD ELM. 149

On the left, and stretching behind, were the
tents of the American camp. The soldiers them-
selves were drawn up in the road and on the dry,
treeless common. Crowded about were men,
women, and children, for the news had spread
that the general had come, and the crowd and the
soldiers were well intermingled. What did they
see ? They saw a group of men on horseback, in
military dress ; but the foremost man, on whom
all eyes were bent, was a tall, splendid figure,
erect upon his horse ; those nearest could see that
he had a rosy face, thick brown hair that was
brushed back from his face, and clear blue eyes
set rather far apart. By his side was a man who
appeared even taller, he was so thin and lank ;
he had a huge nose, eyes that were looking in
every direction, and a mouth that seemed almost
ready to laugh at the people before him. He sat
easily and carelessly on his horse. This was Gen-
eral Lee.

Now, the strong Vii'ginian, easily marked by
his bearing and his striking dress, — for he wore
a blue coat with buff facings, buff small-clothes,
an epaulet on each shoulder, and a cockade in his
hat, — turned to General Ward, who had hereto-
fore been in command of the army, and laying his
hand on the hilt of his sword, drew it from the
scabbard, and raised it in the sight of the people.
The cannon roared, no doubt, and the people
shouted. It was a great occasion for them, and

150 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

everybody was on tiptoe to see the Virginians.
All this is what we may suppose, for there is no
account of the exact ceremony. We only know
that, at that time, Washington took command of
the army.

But what did Washington see, and what did he
think, now, and later, when he made a tour of in-
spection through the camp and to the outposts ?
He saw a motley assembly, in all sorts of uni-
forms and without any uniform at all, with all
sorts of weapons and with precious little powder.
So little was there that Washington was very anx-
ious lest the British should find out how little he
had ; and so while he was urging Congress to pro-
vide supplies, he had barrels of sand, with powder
covering the top, placed in the magazine, that
any spy hanging about might be misled. Some of
the soldiers were in tents, some were quartered in
one or two college buildings then standing, and
some built huts for themselves. The most or-
derly camp was that of the Rhode Island troops,
under General Nathanael Greene.

The men were in companies of various sizes,
under captains and other officers who had very
little authority over the privates, for these usually
elected their own commanders. A visitor to the
camp relates a dialogue which he heard between
a captain and one of the privates under him.

" Bill," said the captain, " go and bring a pail
of water for the men."

UNDER THE OLD ELM. 151

" I sha'n't," said Bill. " It 's your turn now,
Captain ; I got it last time."

But the men, though under very little disci-
pline, were good stuff out of which to make sol-
diers. Most of them were in dead earnest, and
they brought, besides courage, great skill in the
use of the ordinary musket. A story is told of a
company of riflemen raised in one of the frontier
counties of Pennsylvania. So many volunteers
applied as to embarrass the leader who was enlist-
ing the company, and he drew on a board with
chalk the figure of a nose of the common size,
placed the board at the distance of a hundred and
fifty yards, and then declared he would take only
those who could hit the mark. Over sixty suc-
ceeded. " General Gage, take care of your nose,"
says the newspaper that tells the story. General
Gage, as you know, was the commander of the
British forces in Boston.

Washington wrote to Congress, " I have a sin-
cere pleasure in observing that there are mate-
rials for a good army, a great number of able-
bodied men, active, zealous in the cause, and of
unquestionable courage."

His first business was to make an army out of
this material, and he shrewdly suggested that inas-
much as there was great need of clothing, it would
be well to furnish ten thousand hunting-shirts at
once. Not only would these be the cheapest gar-
ments, but they would furnish a convenient and

152 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

characteristic uniform, which would destroy the
distinctions between the troops from different
colonies or towns. If the men looked alike, they
would act together better.

There is a story that Washington had a plat-
form built in the branches of the elm under which
he had taken command of the army, and that
there he sat with his glass, spying the movements
across the water in Boston. Whether this be so
or not, he was constantly scouring the country
himself, and sending his scouts within the en-
emy's lines. The most critical time came at the
end of the year 1775, when the term of the old
soldiers' enlistment expired, and the ranks were
filling up with raw recruits.

" It is not in the pages of history, perhaps,"
writes Washington to the president of Congress,
on the 4th of January, " to furnish a case like
ours. To maintain a post within musket-shot of
the enemy for six months together without
and at the same time to disband one army and
recruit another, within that distance of twenty odd
British regiments, is more, probably, than ever
was attempted. But if we succeed as well in the
last as we have heretofore in the first, I shall
think it the most fortunate event of my whole
life."

The blank purposely left in this letter, in case
it should fall into the hands of the enemy, was
easily filled by Congress with the word " powder."

UNDER THE OLD ELM. 153

At one time there was not half a pound to a man.
General Sullivan writes that when General Wash-
ington heard of this, he was so much struck by
the danger that he did not utter a word for half
an hour.

When Washington left Philadelphia for Cam-
bridge, he wrote to his wife as if he expected to
return after a short campaign. Perhaps he said
this to comfort her. Perhaps he really hoped
that by a short, sharp struggle the colonies would
show Great Britain that they were in earnest, and
would secure the rights which had been taken
from them. At any rate, from the day he took
command of the army in Cambridge, Washington
had one purpose in view, to attack Boston just as
soon as possible. The summer was not over be-
fore he called his officers together and proposed
to make the attack. They hesitated, and finally
said they were not ready for so bold a move. He
called a council again, the middle of October, but
still he could not bring them to the point. He
kept on urging it, however, as the one thing to do,
and Congress at last, just at the end of the year,
passed a resolution giving Washington authority
to make an assault upon the British forces " in
any manner he might think expedient, notwith-
standing the town and property in it might be
destroyed."

As soon as he received this authority, Wash-
ington again called his officers together, and

154 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

urged with all his might the necessity of imme-
diate action. He thought they should make a
bold attempt at once to conquer the English army
in Boston. In the spring more troops would
come over from England. "Strike now!" he
said, "and perhaps it will not be necessary to
strike again." But it was not till the middle of
February that he was able to persuade his gen-
erals to agree to a move. As soon as he had won
them over, he made his preparations as rapidly as
possible, and on the 3d of March took possession
of Dorchester Heights. That movement showed
the British what was coming. If they were to
stay in Boston, they would at once be attacked.
They took to their ships and sailed out of Boston
harbor.

Washington had driven them out, though he
had fought no battle. It is impossible to say
what would have happened if he could have had
his way before, and attacked Boston. There were
many friends of America in Parliament, and if
the news had come that the New England men
had actually destroyed Boston, the town where
their property was, in their determination to drive
out the British soldiers, I think these friends
would have said : " See how much in earnest these
Massachusetts men are ! They have a right to be
heard, when they are willing to sacrifice their own
town to secure their rights." Boston was not de-
stroyed, and the war went on ; but one effect of

UNDER THE OLD ELM. 155

this siege of Boston was to inspire confidence in
Washington. He showed that he was a born
leader. He did not hold back, but went right to
the front, and beckoned to the other generals to
come and stand where he stood. He had cour-
age ; he was ready to attack the enemy. It was
a righteous cause in which he was embarked, and
he wished to make short work of the business.
There were to be seven weary years of war, and
Washington was to show in other ways that he
was the leader ; but it was a great thing that in
the beginning of the struggle he should have been
head and shoulders above the men around him,
and that when he drew his sword from the scab-
bard he was no boaster, but was ready at once to
use it.

CHAPTER XVI.

LEADING THE ARMY.

ON the 13th of April, 1776, Washington was
in New York, which now promised to be the cen-
tre of operations. Here he remained four or five
months, making one visit meanwhile to Philadel-
phia, at the request of Congress, which wished to
confer with him. He was busy increasing and
strengthening the army and erecting fortifications.

That spring and summer saw a rapid change in
men's minds regarding the war with England.
Washington no longer thought it possible to ob-
tain what the colonies demanded and still remain
subject to England. He was ready for indepen-
dence, and when Congress issued its declaration,
Washington had it read before the army with
great satisfaction.

Not long after the Declaration of Independence
an English fleet arrived in New York Bay, bring-
ing a large body of troops, under the command of
Lord Howe, who, with his brother Admiral Howe,
had been appointed commissioners to treat with
the Americans. In reality, they only brought a
promise of pardon to the rebels. It was very
clear to Washington that the British government

LEADING THE ARMY. 157

had not the slightest intention of listening to the
grievances of the colonies with a desire to redress
them ; but that they meant by these proposals to
distract the colonies, if possible, and build up a
party there that would oppose the action of Con-
gress. There was a little incident attending the
arrival of the commissioners that showed the feel-
ing which prevailed.

One afternoon, word came that a boat was com-
ing to headquarters, bringing a messenger from
Lord Howe with a communication. Washington
had noticed that the British, whenever speaking
of him or other American officers, had refused to
regard them as officers of the army ; they were
simply private gentlemen who had taken up arms
against the king. Now Washington knew that
while it was in itself a small matter whether he
was addressed by people about him as General
Washington or Mr. Washington, it was not at all
a small matter how Lord Howe addressed him.
That officer had no business with George Wash-
ington, but he might have very important busi-
ness witli General Washington. Accordingly, he
called together such of the American officers as
were at headquarters to consult them in regard
to the subject, and they agreed entirely with him.
Colonel Reed was directed to receive the messen-
ger and manage the matter.

Accordingly, he entered a boat and was rowed
out toward Staten Island, whence Lord Howe's

158 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

messenger was coming. The two boats met half-
way, and Lieutenant Brown — for that was the
name of the messenger — was very polite, and in-
formed Colonel Reed that he bore a letter from
General Howe to Mr. Washington. Colonel
Reed looked surprised. He himself was an offi-
cer in the Continental army, and he knew no such
person. Thereupon Lieutenant Brown showed
him the letter, which was addressed, George
Washington, Esq. Colonel Reed was polite, but
it was quite impossible for him to bear a letter to
the commander of the American army addressed
in that way. The lieutenant was embarrassed ;
as a gentleman and an officer he saw he was in the
wrong. He tried to make matters better by say-
ing that it was an important letter, but was in-
tended rather for a person who was of great im-
portance in American councils than for one who
was commanding an army.

Colonel Reed continued to refuse the letter, and
the boats parted. Presently, however, Lieutenant
Brown came rowing back and asked by what title
Washington chose to be addressed. It was quite
an unnecessary question, Reed thought. There
was not the slightest doubt as to what General
Washington's rank was. The lieutenant knew it
and was really very sorry, but he wished Colonel
Reed would take the letter. Colonel Reed re-
plied that it was the easiest matter in the world ;
it only needed that the letter should be correctly
addressed. And so they parted.

LEADING THE ARMY. 159

Five days later, an aide-de-camp of General
Howe appeared with a flag and asked that an in-
terview might be granted to Colonel Patterson,
the British Adjutant-General. Consent was given,
and the next day Washington, with all his officers
about him, received Colonel Patterson, who was
very polite, and addressed him as " Your Excel-
lency," which did quite well, though it was dodg-
ing matters somewhat. He tried to explain away
the affair of the letter, and said that no imperti-
nence was intended, and he then produced another,
addressed to George Washington, Esq., etc., etc.

Evidently, Lord Howe thought he had invented
a capital way out of the difficulty. Et cetera, et
cetera ! Why, that might cover everything, —
General-Commanding, Lord High Rebel, or any-
thing else this very punctilious Virginia gentle-
man might fancy as his title. It would save
Washington's pride and relieve Lord Howe's
scruples. Washington replied coolly, Yes, the et
cetera implied everything, but it also implied any-
thing or nothing. It was meaningless. He was
not a private person ; this letter was meant for a
public character, and as such he could not receive
it, unless it acknowledged him properly. So Colo-
nel Patterson was obliged to pocket the letter,
and try to cover his mortification and to deliver
the contents verbally.

Perhaps all this sounds like very small business.
In reality it meant a great deal. Were Washing-

160 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

ton and other officers rebels against the king, or
were they the officers of a government which de-
clared itself independent of the king? Lord
Howe gave up trying to force Washington into
the trap, and wrote to his government that it
would be necessary in future to give the Ameri-
can commander his title ; and Congress, to whom
Washington reported the matter, passed a resolu-
tion approving of his course, and directing that
no letter or message be received on any occasion
whatsoever from the enemy, by the commander-
in-chief or by other commanders of the American
army, but such as should be directed to them in
the characters they respectively sustained. Little
things like this went a great way toward making
the people stand erect and look the world in the
face.

The Americans needed, indeed, all the aid and
comfort they could get, for it was plain that they
were at a great disadvantage, with their half-
equipped troops stationed some on Long Island
and some in New York, between the North and
East rivers, surrounded by Tories, who took cour-
age from the presence of a large British foi-ce in
the bay. Washington used his best endeavors to
bring about a strong spirit of patriotism in the
camp which should put an end to petty sectional
jealousies, and he felt the sacredness of the cause
in which they were engaged so deeply that he
could not bear to have the army act or think other-

LEADING THE ARMY. 161

wise than as the servants of God. He issued a
general order, which ran as follows : —

" That the troops may have an opportunity of at-
tending public worship, as well as to take some rest af-
ter the great fatigue they have gone through, the gen-
eral, in future, excuses them from fatigue duty on
Sundays, except at the ship-yards, or on special occa-
sions, until further orders. The general is sorry to be
informed that the foolish and wicked practice of pro-
fane cursing and swearing, — a vice heretofore little
known in an American army, — is growing into fashion;
he hopes the officers will, by example as well as influ-
ence, endea\or to check it, and that both they and the
men will reflect, that we can have little hope of the
blessing of Heaven on our arms, if we insult it by our
impiety and folly ; added to this, it is a vice so mean
and low, without any temptation, that every man of
sense and character detests and despises it."-

The time was now at hand when the army
would be put to a severe test, and Washington
was to show his generalship in. other and more
striking ways. The battle of Long Island was
fought August 27, 1776, and was a severe blow to
the American army. Washington's first business
was to withdraw such of the forces as remained
on Long Island to the mainland, and unite the
two parts of his army. He had nine thousand
men and their baggage and arms to bring across
a swift strait, while a victorious enemy was so
near that their movements could be plainly heard.

162 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Now his skill and energy were seen. He sent
verbal orders for all the boats of whatever size
that lay along the New York shore up the Hudson
and on the East River to be brought to the Brook-
lyn side. He issued orders for the troops to hold
themselves in readiness to attack the enemy at
night, and he made the troops that defended the
outer line of breastworks to have all the air of
preparation as if they were about to move at once
upon the enemy. All this time it was raining and
uncomfortable enough, for the soldiers were unpro-
tected by tents or shelter of any kind, save such
rude barriers as they could raise. They kept up
a brisk firing at the outposts, and the men who
held the advanced position were on the alert, ex-
pecting every moment orders to advance.

Then they heard dull sounds in the distance
toward the water. Suddenly at about two o'clock
in the morning a cannon went off with a tremen-
dous explosion. Nobody knew what it was, and
to this day the accident remains a mystery. But
the soldiers discovered what was going on. A
retreat instead of an advance had been ordered.
The order for an advance was intended to conceal
the plan. Washington was on the shore superin-
tending the embarkation of the troops. Some
had gone over ; when the tide turned, the wind
and current were against them; there were not
enough boats to carry the rest. To add to the
confusion one of the officers blundered, and the

LEADING THE ARMY. 163

men who had been kept in front to conceal the
movement from the British were ordered down to
the Ferry. For a while it looked as if the retreat
would be discovered, but it was not, and when
morning came the entire army had been moved
across to New York, and not a man in the British
army knew what had been done. It was a great
feat, and Washington, who had not closed his
eyes for forty-eight hours, and scarcely left the
saddle all that time, again showed himself a mas-
terly general.

He had now to show the same kind of ability
the rest of the autumn. It requires one kind of
generalship to lead men into battle and another
to lead them on a retreat away from the enemy.
With a large fleet in the harbor, it was clear that
the British could at any time destroy New York
and any army that was there. Accordingly,
Washington withdrew his army up the island.
The British followed. They could transport
troops on both sides of the island, by water, and
could prevent the Americans from crossing the
Hudson River into New Jersey. They began to
land troops on the shore of East River not far
from where is now the Thirty-fourth Street Ferry.
Some breastworks had been thrown up there, and
were held by soldiers who had been in the battle
of Long Island. They seem to have been thor-
oughly demoralized by that defeat, for they fled
as soon as they saw the British advancing, and

164 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

other troops which had been sent to reinforce
them were also seized with panic and fled.

Washington heard the firing in this direction
and galloped over to the scene. He met the sol-
diers running away and called on them to halt.
But they were overcome by fear and had lost their
self-command. They paid no heed to him, and
Washington, usually cool and self-possessed, was
so enraged by their cowardly behavior that he
flew into a transport of rage, flung down his hat,
exclaiming1, " Are these the men with whom I am
to defend America ! M and drawing his pistols and
sword in turn, rushed upon the fugitives, trying
to drive them back to their duty. He had no
fear of danger himself, and was within a short
distance of the British, riding about furiously,
when one of his aids, seeing the danger, seized
the horse's bridle and called his commander to
his senses.

To cover the army, Washington posted his
forces across the narrow upper part of the island,
from Fort Washington on the Hudson to the
Harlem River, and here he kept the British at
bay while his men recovered their strength and
were ready for further movements. Meanwhile,
across the Hudson River from Fort Washington,
another fort, named from General Lee, had been
built, and Washington had posted General Greene
there. It was evident that with the British in
force, with an army and navy, it would be impos-

LEADING THE ARMY. 165

sible to hold New York or the Hudson River, and
it was also clear that should Washington's army
be defeated there, the British would at once move
on Philadelphia, where Congress was sitting.
With New York commanding the Hudson River,
and with Philadelphia in their hands, the British
would have control of the most important parts of
America.

Washington saw also that there was hard work
before him, and that it would be impossible to
carry on the war with an army which was enlisted
for a year only, and he bent his energies toward
persuading Congress to enlist men for a longer
period. He had to organize this new army and
to superintend countless details. His old habits
of method and accuracy stood him in good stead
now, and he worked incessantly, getting affairs
into order, for he knew that the British would
soon move. Indeed, it is one of the strange
things in history that the British, with the im-
mense advantage which they had, did not at once
after the battle of Long Island press forward and
break down the Continental army in a quick suc-
cession of attacks by land and water. It is quite
certain that Washington, in their place, would
not have delayed action.

At the end of October, Washington occupied
a position at White Plains, in the rocky, hilly
country north of New York. Step by step he
had given way before General Howe, who had

166 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

been trying to get the American army where he
could surround it and destroy it. Washington,
on the other hand, could not afford to run any
risks. He wished to delay the British as long as
possible, and not fight them till he had his new
army well organized. There was a battle at
White Plains, and the Americans were forced
back ; but Washington suddenly changed his
position, moved his men quickly to a stronger
place, and began to dig intrenchments. He was
too weak to fight in the open field, but he could
fight with his spade, and he meant to give Howe
all the trouble he could. He expected another
attack, but in a day or two there were signs of
a movement, and he discovered that the enemy
was leaving his front.

He was not quite certain what Howe's plans
might be, but he was quite sure he would move
on Philadelphia. Meanwhile, he kept watch over
Fort Washington, and gave orders that it should
be held only so long as it was prudent, but that
in case of extreme danger, it should be given up
and its garrison cross the river to Fort Lee. He
himself, with all but the New England troops,
crossed the river higher up, at King's Ferry. The
New England and New York troops he posted on
both sides of the river to defend the passes in the
Highlands, for it was of great importance to have
open communication between Philadelphia and
New England. A division also was left under

LEADING THE ARMY. 167

General Lee at White Plains, who was to be
ready to join Washington when it should become
necessary.

General Greene, who was in command at Fort
Lee, on the New Jersey side of the Hudson, hoped
to keep Fort Washington, on the New York side,
which was also under his command. He hoped to
keep it even after the British had begun to lay
siege to it. Washington was obliged to leave this
business to Greene's discretion, for he was occu-
pied with moving his army across the river, higher
up, and if the fort could have held out, they might
have been able to prevent the British from cross-
ing to New Jersey. But Greene counted on a
stouter defense than the men in the fort gave,
and when Washington at last reached Fort Lee
it was only to see from the banks of the river
the surrender of Fort Washington with its mil-
itary stores and two thousand men. It was a ter-
rible loss ; and, moreover, the capture of that fort
made it impossible to hold Fort Lee, which was
at once abandoned.

Now began a wonderful retreat. The English
under Lord Cornwallis, with a well - equipped
army, and flushed with recent victory, crossed
over to New Jersey and began moving forward.
They were so prompt that the Americans left
their kettles on the fire in Fort Lee as they has-
tily left. Washington, with a small, ragged, dis-
couraged army, fell back from the enemy, some-

168 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

times leaving a town at one end as the British
entered it at the other; but he broke down
bridges, he destroyed provisions, and so hampered
and delayed the enemy that they made less than
seventy miles over level country in nineteen days.

Meanwhile the British general was issuing
proclamations calling upon the people of New
Jersey to return to their allegiance, and promising
them pardon. Many 'gave up and asked protec-
tion. It seemed as if the war were coming to an
end, and that all the struggle had been in vain.
The American army, moreover, had been enlisted
for a short term only, and before the end of De-
cember most of the men would have served their
time. General Lee delayed and delayed, and
Washington himself was harassed and well-nigh
disheartened ; but he meant to die hard. One
day, when affairs looked very dark, he turned to
Colonel Reed, who was by him, and said, drawing
his hand significantly across his throat : " Reed,
my neck does not feel as though it was made for
a halter. We must retire to Augusta County in
Virginia, and if overpowered, must pass the Alle-
ghany Mountains."

But Washington was made for something more
than a guerrilla chieftain. He had put the Dela-
ware River between his army and the British, who
were now scattered over New Jersey, going into
winter quarters, and intending, when the river
was frozen, to cross on the ice and move upon

LEADING THE ARMY. 169

Philadelphia. Suddenly, on Christmas night,
Washington recrossed the river with his little
army, making a perilous passage through cakes of
floating ice that crunched against the boats, sur-
prised a large detachment of Hessians near Tren-
ton, and captured a thousand prisoners. Eight
days later he fought the battle of Princeton.
Within three weeks he had completely turned the
tables. He had driven the enemy from every
post it occupied in New Jersey, except Brunswick
and Amboy, made Philadelphia safe, and shown
the people that the army, which was thought to
be on the verge of destruction, could be used in
the hands of a great general like a rod with which
to punish the enemy.

Men were beginning to see that here was one
who was a true leader of men.

On the day after the victory at Trenton, Con-
gress, " having maturely considered the present
crisis, and having perfect reliance on the wisdom,
vigor, and uprightness of General Washington,"
passed a resolution that " General Washington
shall be, and he is hereby, vested with full, am-
ple, and complete powers to raise armies, appoint
officers, and exercise control over the parts of the
country occupied by the army." Washington had
been constantly checked by the necessity of refer-
ring all questions to Congress and to his generals.
Now he was to have full power, for he had shown
himself a man fit to be trusted with power.

CHAPTER XVII.

AT VALLEY FORGE.

THE winter of 1777 passed with little fighting ;
and when the spring opened, Washington used his
army so adroitly as to prevent the British from
moving on Philadelphia, and finally crowded them
out of New Jersey altogether. That summer, how-
ever, was an anxious one, for there was great un-
certainty as to the plans of the enemy ; and when
at last a formidable British army appeared in the
Chesapeake, whither it had been transported by
sea, Washington hurried his forces to meet it, and
fought the battle of Brandywine, in which he met
with a severe loss. He retrieved his fortune in
part by a brilliant attack on the enemy at Ger-
mantown, and then retired to Valley Forge, in-
Pennsylvania, where he went into winter quar-
ters ; while the British army was comfortably es-
tablished in Philadelphia.

The defeat of Burgoyne by Gates, at Saratoga,
in the summer and Washington's splendid attack
at Germantown had made a profound impression
in Europe, and are counted as having turned the
scale in favor of an alliance with the United States
on the part of France. But when the winter shut

AT VALLEY FORGE. 171

down on the American army, no such good cheer
encouraged it. That winter of 1778 was the most
terrible ordeal which the army endured, and one
has but to read of the sufferings of the soldiers to
learn at how great a cost independence was bought.
It is worth while to tell again the familiar story,
because the leader of the army himself shared the
want and privation of the men. To read of Valley
Forge is to read of Washington.

The place was chosen for winter quarters be-
cause of its position. It was equally distant with
Philadelphia from the Brandywine and from the
ferry across the Delaware into New Jersey. It
was too far from Philadelphia to be in peril from
attack, and yet it was so near that the American
army could, if opportunity offered, descend quickly
on the city. Then it was so protected by hills and
streams that the addition of a few lines of fortifi-
cation made it very secure.

But there was no town at Valley Forge, and it
became necessary to provide some shelter for the
soldiers other than the canvas tents which served
in the field in summer. It was the middle of De-
cember when the army began preparations for the
winter, and Washington gave directions for the
building of the little village. The men were di-
vided into parties of twelve, each party to build a
hut to accommodate that number ; and in order
to stimulate the men, Washington promised a re-
ward of twelve dollars to the party in each reg-

172 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

iment which finished its hut first and most satis-
factorily. And as there was some difficulty in
getting boards, he offered a hundred dollars to
any officer or soldier who should invent some sub-
stitute which would be as cheap as boards and as
quickly provided.

Each hut was to be fourteen feet by sixteen, the
sides, ends, and roof to be made of logs, and the
sides made tight with clay. There was to be a
fireplace in the rear of each hut, built of wood,
but lined with clay eighteen inches thick. The
walls were to be six and ashalf feet high. Huts
were also to be provided for the officers, and to be
placed in the rear of those occupied by the troops.
All these were to be regularly arranged in streets.
A visitor to the camp when the huts were being
built wrote of the army : " They appear to me like
a family of beavers, every one busy ; some carry-
ing logs, others mud, and the rest plastering them
together." It was bitterly cold, and for a month
the men were at work, making ready for the
winter.

But in what sort of condition were the men them-
selves when they began this work? Here is a
picture of one of those men on his way to Valley
Forge : " His bare feet peep through his worn-
out shoes, his legs nearly naked from the tattered
remains of an only pair of stockings, his breeches
not enough to cover his nakedness, his shirt hang-
ing in strings, his hair disheveled, his face wan

AT 7 ALLEY FORGE. 173

and thin, his look hungry, his whole appearance
that of a man forsaken and neglected." And the
snow was falling ! This was one of the privates.
The officers were scarcely better off. One was
wrapped " in a sort of dressing-gown made of an
old blanket or woolen bed-cover." The uniforms
were torn and ragged ; the guns were rusty ; a
few only had bayonets ; the soldiers carried their
powder in tin boxes and cow-horns.

To explain why this army was so poor and for-
lorn would be to tell a long story. It may be
summed up briefly in these words : The army was
not taken care of because there was no country to
take care of it. There were thirteen States, and
each of these States sent troops into the field, but
all the States were jealous of one another. There
was a Congress, which undertook to direct the war,
but all the members of Congress, coming from the
several States, were jealous of one another. They
were agreed on only one thing — that it was not
prudent to give the army too much power. It is
true that they had once given Washington large
authority, but they had given it only for a short
period. They were very much afraid that some-
how the army would rule the country, and yet
they were trying to free the country from the rule
of England. But when they talked about freeing
the country, each man thought only of his own
State. The first fervor with which they had
talked about a common country had died away ;

174 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

there were some very selfish men in Congress, who
could not be patriotic enough to think of the whole
country.

The truth is, it takes a long time for the people
of a country to come to feel that they have a coun-
try. Up to the time of the war for independence,
the people in America did not care much for one
another or for America. They had really been
preparing to be a nation, but they did not know
it. They were angry with Great Britain, and
they knew they had been wronged. They were
therefore ready to fight ; but it does not require
so much courage to fight as to endure suffering
and to be patient.

So it was that the people of America who were
most conscious that they were Americans were the
men who were in the army, and their wives and
mothers and sisters at home. All these were
making sacrifices for their country and so learning
to love it. The men in the army came from dif-
ferent States, and there was a great deal of state
feeling among them ; but, after all, they belonged
to one army, — the Continental army, — and they
had much more in common than they had sepa-
rately. Especially they had a great leader who
made no distinction between Virginians and New
England men. Washington felt keenly all the
lack of confidence which Congress showed. He
saw that the spirit in Congress was one which kept
the people divided, while the spirit at Valley Forge

AT VALLEY FORGE. 175

kept the people united, and he wrote reproachfully
to Congress : —

" If we would pursue a right system of policy, in my
opinion, ... we should all, Congress and army, be
considered as one people, embarked in one cause, in one
interest ; acting on the same principle, and to the same
end. The distinction, the jealousies set up or perhaps
only incautiously let out, can answer not a single good
purpose. . . . No order of men in the thirteen States
has paid a more sacred regard to the proceedings of
Congress than the army ; for without arrogance or the
smallest deviation from truth, it may be said that no
history now extant can furnish an instance of an army's
suffering such uncommon hardships as ours has done,
and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude.
To see men, without clothes to cover them, without
blankets to lie on, without shoes (for the want of which
their marches might be traced by the blood from their
feet), and almost as often without provisions as with
them, marching through the frost and snow, and at
Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a
day's march of the enemy, without a house or hut to
cover them, till they could be built, and submitting with-
out a murmur, is a proof of patience and obedience,
which, in my opinion, can scarce be paralleled."

The horses died of starvation, and the men
harnessed themselves to trucks and sleds, hauling
wood and provisions from storehouse to hut. At
one time there was not a ration in camp. Wash-
ington seized the peril with a strong hand and com-
pelled the people in the country about, who had

176 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

been selling to the British army at Philadelphia,
to give up their stores to the patriots at Valley
Forge.

Meanwhile, the wives of the officers came to the
camp, and these brave women gave of their cheer
to its dreary life. Mrs. Washington was there
with her husband. " The general's apartment is
very small," she wrote to a friend ; " he has had
a log cabin built to dine in, which has made our
quarters much more tolerable than they were at
first."

The officers and their wives came together and
told stories, perhaps over a plate of hickory nuts,
which, we are informed, furnished General Wash-
ington's dessert. The general was cheerful in the
little society ; but his one thought was how to
keep the brave company of men alive and prepare
them for what lay before them. The house where
he had his quarters was a farm-house belonging
to a Quaker, Mr. Potts, who has said that one day
when strolling up the creek, away from the camp,
he heard a deep, quiet voice a little way off. He
went nearer, and saw Washington's horse tied to
a sapling. Hard by, in the thicket, was Washing-
ton on his knees, praying earnestly.

At the end of February, light began to break.
The terrible winter was passing away, though the
army was still in a wretched state. But there came
to camp a volunteer, Baron Steuben, who had
been trained in the best armies of Europe. In

AT VALLEY FORGE. 177

him Washington had, what he greatly needed, an
excellent drill-master. Pie made him Inspector
of the army, and soon, as if by magic, the men
changed from slouching, careless fellows into erect,
orderly soldiers. The baron began with a picked
company of one hundred and twenty men, whom
he drilled thoroughly ; these became the models
for others, and so the whole camp was turned into
a military school.

The prospect grew brighter and brighter, until
on the 4th of May, late at night, a messenger rode
into camp with despatches from Congress. Wash-
ington opened them, and his heart must have
leaped for joy as he read that an alliance had been
formed between France and the United States.
Two days later, the army celebrated the event.
The chaplains of the several regiments read the
intelligence and then offered up thanksgiving to
God. Guns were fired, and there was a public
dinner in honor of Washington and his generals.
There had been shouts for the king of France and
for the American States ; but when Washington
took his leave, " there was," says an officer who
was present, universal applause, " with loud huz-
zas, which continued till he had proceeded a quar-
ter of a mile, during which time there were a
thousand hats tossed in the air. His excellency
turned round with his retinue, and huzzaed sev-
eral times."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CONWAY CABAL.

THERE is no man so high but some will always
be found who wish to pull him down. Washing-
ton was no exception to this rule. His men wor-
shiped him ; the people had confidence in him ;
the officers nearest to him, and especially those
who formed a part of his military family, were
warmly attached to him ; but in Congress there
were men who violently opposed him, and there
were certain generals who not only envied him but
were ready to seize any opportunity which might
offer to belittle him and to place one of their own
number in his place. The chief men who were
engaged in this business were Generals Conway,
Mifflin, and Gates, and from the prominent posi-
tion taken in the affair by the first-named officer^
the intrigue against Washington goes by the name
of the Conway Cabal. A " cabal " is a secret
combination against a person with the object of
his hurt or injury.

It is not easy to say just how or when this cabal
first showed itself. Conway was a young briga-
dier-general, very conceited and impudent. Mif-
flin had been quartermaster-general, but had re-

THE CON WAY CABAL. 179

signed. He had been early in the service, and
was in Cambridge with W ashington, but had long
been secretly hostile to him. Gates, who had
been Washington's companion in Virginia, was an
ambitious man who never lost an opportunity of
looking after his own interest, and had been es-
pecially fortunate in being appointed to the com-
mand of the northern army just as it achieved the
famous victory over Burgoyne.

The defeat at Brandywine, the failure to make
Gennantown a great success, and the occupation
of Philadelphia by the British troops, while the
American army was suffering at Valley Forge —
all this seemed to many a sorry story compared
with the brilliant victory at Saratoga. There had
always been those who thought Washington slow
and cautious. John Adams was one of these, and
he expressed himself as heartily glad " that the
glory of turning the tide of arms was not imme-
diately due to the commander-in-chief." Others
shook their heads and said that the people of
America had been guilty of idolatry by making a
man their god ; and that, besides, the army would
become dangerous to the liberties of the people if
it were allowed to be so influenced by one man.

Conway was the foremost of these critics. " No
man was more a gentleman than General Wash-
ington, or appeared to more advantage at his ta-
ble, or in the usual intercourse of life," he would
say ; then he would give his shoulders a shrug,

180 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

and look around and add, " but as to his talents
for the command of an army, they were miserable
indeed."

" Gates was the general ! " Conway said.
" There was a man who could fight, and win vic-
tories ! "

Gates himself was in a mood to believe it.
He had been so intoxicated by his success against
Burgoyne that he thought himself the man of the
day, and quite forgot to send a report of the ac-
tion to his eommander-in-chief. Washington re-
buked him in a letter which was severe in its quiet
tone. He congratulated Gates on his great suc-
cess, and added, " At the same time, I cannot but
regret that a matter of such magnitude, and so in-
teresting to our general operations, should have
reached me by report only ; or through the channel
of letters not bearing that authenticity which the
importance of it required, and which it would have
received by a line over your signature stating the
simple fact."

Gates may have winced under the rebuke, but
he was then listening to Conway's flattery, and
that was more agreeable to him. Conway, on his
part, found Gates a convenient man to set up as a
rival to Washington. He himself did not aspire
to be commander-in-chief, though he would have
had no doubt as to his capacity. Washington
knew him well. " His merit as an officer," wrote
the commander-in-chief, " and his importance in

THE CON WAY CABAL. 181

this army exist more in his own imagination than
in reality. For it is a maxim with him to leave no
service of his untold, nor to want anything which
is to be obtained by importunity." Conway
thought Gates was the rising man, and he meant
to rise with him. He filled his ear with things
which he thought would please him, and among
other letters wrote him one in which these words
occurred : " Heaven has determined to save your
country, or a weak general and bad counselors
would have ruined it."

Now Gates was foolish enough to show this let-
ter to Wilkinson, one of his aids, and Wilkinson
repeated it to an aid of Lord Stirling, one of
Washington's generals, and Lord Stirling at once
sat down and wrote it off to Washington. There-
upon Washington, who knew Conway too well to
waste any words upon him, sat down and wrote
him this letter : —

" SIR, — A letter which I received last night con-
tained the following paragraph : —

'"In a letter from General Conway to General
Gates he says : Heaven has determined to save your
country, or a weak general and bad counselors would
have ruined it.'

" I am, Sir, your humble servant,

"GEORGE WASHINGTON."

That was all, but it was quite enough to throw
Conway and Gates and Mifflin into a panic. How
did Washington get hold of the sentence ? Had

182 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

he seen any other letters ? How much did he
know? In point of fact, that was all that Wash-
ington had seen. He had a contempt for Conway.
He knew of Mifflin's hostility and that Gates was
now cool to him ; but he did not suspect Gates of
any intrigue, and he supposed for a while that
Wilkinson's message had been intended only to
warn him of Conway's evil mind.

Gates was greatly perplexed to know what to
do, but he finally wrote to Washington as if there
were some wretch who had been stealing letters
and might be discovering the secrets of the Ameri-
can leaders. He begged Washington to help him
find the rascal. Washington replied, giving him
the exact manner in which the letter came into his
hands, and then closed with a few sentences that
showed Gates clearly that he had lost the confi-
dence of his commander-in-chief.

That particular occasion passed, but presently
the cabal showed its head again, this time working
through Congress. It secured the appointment
of a Board of War, with Gates at the head, and a
majority of the members from men who were hos-
tile to Washington. Now, they thought, Wash-
ington will resign, and to help matters on they
spread the report that Washington was about to
resign. The general checkmated them at once by
a letter to a friend, in which he wrote : —

" To report a design of this kind is among the arts

THE CON WAY CABAL. 183

which those who are endeavoring to effect a change are
practicing to bring it to pass. . . . While the public are
satisfied with my endeavors, I mean not to shrink from
the cause. But the moment her voice, not that of fac-
tion, calls upon me to resign, I shall do it with as much
pleasure as ever the wearied traveler retired to rest."

The cabal was not yet defeated. It had failed
by roundabout methods. It looked about in Con-
gress and counted the disaffected to see if it would
be possible to get a majority vote in favor of a
motion to arrest the commander-in-chief. So at
least the story runs which, from its nature, would
not be found in any record, but was whispered
from one man to another. The day came when
the motion was to be tried ; the conspiracy leaked
out, and Washington's friends bestirred them-
selves. They needed one more vote. They sent
post-haste for one of their number, Gouverneur
Morris, who was absent in camp ; but they feared
they could not get him in time. In their extrem-
ity, they went to William Duer, a member from
New York, who was dangerously ill. Duer sent
for his doctor.

" Doctor," he asked, " can I be carried to Con-
gress? "

" Yes, but at the risk of your life," replied the
physician.

" Do you mean that I should expire before
reaching the place?" earnestly inquired, the pa*
tient.

184 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

" No," came the answer ; " but I would not an-
swer for your leaving it alive."

" Very well, sir. You have done your duty and
I will do mine ! " exclaimed Duer. " Prepare a
litter for me ; if you will not, somebody else will,
but I prefer your aid."

The demand was in earnest, and Duer had al-
ready started when it was announced that Morris
had returned and that he would not be needed.
Morris had come direct from the camp with the
latest news of what was going on there. His vote
would make it impossible for the enemies of
Washington to carry their point ; their opportu-
nity was lost, and they never recovered it.

It was not the end of the cabal, however. They
still cherished their hostility to Washington, and
they sought to injure him where he would feel the
wound most keenly. They tried to win from him
the young Marquis de La Fayette, who had come
from France to join the American army, and
whom Washington had taken to his heart. La
Fayette was ambitious and enthusiastic. Conway,
who had been in France, did his best to attach
himself to the young Frenchman, but he betrayed
his hatred of Washington, and that was enough to
estrange La Fayette. Then a winter campaign in
Canada was planned, and the cabal intrigued to
have La Fayette appointed to command it. It was
argued that as a Frenchman he would have an
influence over the French Canadians. But the

THE CON WAY CABAL. 185

plotters hoped that, away from Washington, the
young marquis could be more easily worked upon,
and it was intended that Conway should be his
second in command.

Of course, in contriving this plan, Washington
was not consulted ; but the moment La Fayette
was approached, he appealed to Washington for
advice. Washington saw through the device, but
he at once said, " I would rather it should be you
than another." La Fayette insisted on Kalb be-
ing second in command instead of Conway, whom
he disliked and distrusted. Congress was in ses-
sion at York, and thither La Fayette went to re-
ceive his orders. Gates, who spent much of his
time in the neighborhood of Congress, seeking to
influence the members, was there, and La Fayette
was at once invited to join him and his friends at
dinner. The talk ran freely, and great things
were promised of the Canada expedition, but not
a word was said about Washington. La Fayette
listened and noticed. He thought of the contrast
between the meagre fare and the sacrifices at Val-
ley Forge, and this feast at which he was a guest.
He watched his opportunity, and near the end of
the dinner, he said : —

" I have a toast to propose. There is one health,
gentlemen, which we have not yet drunk. I have
the honor to propose it to you : The Commander-
in-chief of the armies of the United States ! "

It was a challenge which no one dared openly

186 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

to take up, but there was an end to the good spirits
of the company. La Fayette had shown his colors,
and he was let alone after that. Indeed, the Can-
ada expedition never was undertaken, for the men
who were urging it were not in earnest about any-
thing but diminishing the honor of Washington.
It is the nature of cabals and intrigues that they
flourish in the dark. They cannot bear the light.
As soon as these hostile intentions began to reach
the ears of the public, great was the indignation
aroused, and one after another of the conspirators
made haste to disown any evil purpose. Gates
and Mifflin each publicly avowed their entire con-
fidence in Washington, and Conway, who had
fought a duel and supposed himself to be dying,
made a humble apology. The cabal melted away,
leaving Washington more secure than ever in the
confidence of men — all the more secure that he
did not lower himself by attempting the same arts
against his traducers. When Conway was utter-
ing his libels behind his back, Washington was
openly declaring his judgment of Conway ; and
throughout the whole affair, Washington kept his
hands clean, and went his way with a manly dis-
regard of his enemies.

CHAPTER XIX.

MONMOUTH.

THE news of the French alliance, and conse-
quent war between France and England, com-
pelled the English to leave Philadelphia. They
had taken their ease there during the winter, while
hardships and Steuben's drilling and Washington's
unflagging zeal had made the American army at
Valley Forge strong and determined. A French
fleet might at any time sail up the Delaware,
and with the American army in the rear, Phila-
delphia would be a hard place to hold. So Gen-
eral Howe turned his command over to General
Clinton, and went home to England, and General
Clinton set about marching his army across New
Jersey to New York.

The moment the troops left Philadelphia armed
men sprang up all over New Jersey to contest
their passage, and Washington set his army in
motion, following close upon the heels of the en-
emy, who were making for Staten Island. There
was a question whether they should attack the
British and bring on a general engagement, or
only follow them and vex them. The generals on
whom Washington most relied, Greene, La Fay-

188 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

ette, and Wayne, all good fighters, urged that it
would be a shame to let the enemy leave New Jer-
sey without a severe punishment. The majority
of generals in the council, however, strongly op-
posed the plan of giving battle. They said that
the French alliance would undoubtedly put an end
to the war at once. Why, then, risk life and suc-
cess ? The British army, moreover, was strong
and well equipped.

The most strenuous opponent of the fighting
plan was General Charles Lee. When he was
left in command of a body of troops at the time of
Washington's crossing the Hudson River more
than a year before, his orders were to hold himself
in readiness to join Washington at any time. In
his march across New Jersey, Washington had re-
peatedly sent for Lee, but Lee had delayed in an
unaccountable manner, and finally was himself
surprised by a company of dragoons, and taken
captive. For a year he had been held a prisoner,
and only lately had been released on exchange.
He had returned to the army while the cabal
against Washington was going on, and had taken
part in it, for he always felt that he ought to be
first and Washington second. He was second in
command now, and his opinion had great weight.
He was a trained soldier, and besides, in his long
captivity he had become well acquainted with
General Clinton, and he professed to know well
the condition and temper of the British officers.

MONMOUTH. 189

Washington thus found himself unsupported by
a majority of his officers. But he had no doubt in
his own mind that the policy of attack was a sound
one. All had agreed that it was well to harass
the enemy ; he therefore ordered La Fayette with
a large division to fall upon the enemy at an ex-
posed point. He thought it not unlikely that this
would bring on a general action, and he disposed
his forces so as to be ready for such an emergency.
He gave the command to La Fayette, because Lee
had disapproved the plan ; but after La Fayette
had set out, Lee came to Washington and declared
that La Fayette's division was so large as to make
it almost an independent army, and that therefore
he would like to change his mind and take com-
mand. It never would do to have his junior in
such authority.

Here was a dilemma. Washington could not
recall La Fayette. He wished to make use of
Lee ; so he gave Lee two additional brigades, sent
him forward to join La Fayette, when, as his sen-
ior, he would of course command the entire force ;
and at the same time he notified La Fayette of
what he had done, trusting to his sincere devotion
to the cause in such an emergency.

When Clinton found that a large force was
close upon him, he took up his position at Mon-
mouth Court House, now Freehold, New Jersey,
and prepared to meet the Americans. Washing-
ton knew Clinton's movements, and sent word to

190 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Lee at once to attack the British, unless there
should be very powerful reasons to the contrary ;
adding that he himself was bringing up the rest
of the army. Lee had joined La Fayette and was
now in command of the advance. La Fayette
was eager to move upon the enemy.

" You do not know British soldiers," said Lee ;
" we cannot stand against them. We shall cer-
tainly be driven back at first, and we must be
cautious."

" Perhaps so," said La Fayette. " But we have
beaten British soldiers, and we can do it again."

Soon after, one of Washington's aids appeared
for intelligence, and La Fayette, in despair at Lee's
inaction, sent the messenger to urge Washington
to come at once to the front ; that he was needed.
Washington was already on the way, before the
messenger reached him, when he was met by a
little fifer boy, who cried out : —

" They are all coming this way, your honor."

" Who are coming, my little man ? " asked
General Knox, who was riding by Washington.

"Why, our boys, your honor, our boys, and the
British right after them."

" Impossible ! " exclaimed Washington, and he
galloped to a hill just ahead. To his amazement
and dismay, he saw his men retreating. He lost
not an instant, but, putting spurs to his horse,
dashed forward. After him flew the officers who
had been riding by. his side, but they could not

M ON MOUTH. 191

overtake him. His horse, covered with foam,
shot clown the road over a bridge and up the hill
beyond. The retreating column saw him come.
The men knew him ; they stopped ; they made
way for the splendid-looking man, as he, their
leader, rode headlong into the midst of them.
Lee was there, ordering the retreat, and Wash-
ington drew his rein ^s he came upon him. A
moment of terrible silence — then Washington
burst out, his eyes flashing : —

" What, sir, is the meaning of this?"

" Sir, sir," stammered Lee.

" I desire to know, sir, the meaning of this dis-
order and confusion ? "

Lee, enraged now by Washington's towering
passion, made an angry reply. He declared that
the whole affair was against his opinion.

" You are a poltroon ! " flashed back Washing-
ton, with an oath. " Whatever your opinion may
have been, I expected my orders to be obeyed."

" These men cannot face the British grena-
diers," answered Lee.

" They can do it, and they shall ! " exclaimed
Washington, galloping off to survey the ground.
Presently he came back ; his wrath had gone down
in the presence of the peril to the army. He would
waste no strength in cursing Lee.

" Will you retain the command here, or shall
I ? " he asked. " If you will, I will return to the
main body and have it formed on the next height."

192 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

" It is equal to me where I command," said
Lee, sullenly.

" Then remain here," said Washington. " I
expect you to take proper means for checking the
enemy."

" Your orders shall be obeyed, and I shall not
be the first to leave the ground," replied Lee, with
spirit.

The rest of the day the battle raged, and when
night came the enemy had been obliged to fall
back, and Washington determined to follow up his
success in the morning. He directed all the troops
to lie on their arms where they were. He himself
lay stretched on the ground beneath a tree, his
cloak wrapped about him. About midnight, an
officer came near with a message, but hesitated,
reluctant to waken him.

" Advance, sir, and deliver your message,"
Washington called out ; " I lie here to think, and
not to sleep."

In the morning, Washington prepared to renew
the attack, but the British had slipped away under
cover of the darkness, not willing to venture an-
other battle.

Pursuit, except by some cavalry, was unavail-
ing. The men were exhausted. The sun beat
down fiercely, and the hot sand made walking
difficult. Moreover, the British fleet lay off Sandy
Hook, and an advance in that direction would lead
the army nearer to the enemy's reinforcements.

M ON MOUTH. 193

Accordingly Washington marched his army to
Brunswick, and thence to the Hudson River,
crossed it, and encamped again near White Plains.

After the battle of Monmouth, Lee wrote an
angry letter to Washington and received a cool
one in reply. Lee demanded a court-martial, and
Washington at once ordered it. Three charges
were made, and Lee was convicted of disobedience
of orders in not attacking the enemy on the 28th
of June, agreeably to repeated instructions ; mis-
behavior before the enemy on the same day, by
making an unnecessary and disorderly retreat ;
and disrespect to the commander-in-chief. He
was suspended from the army for a year, and he
never returned to it. Long after his death facts
were brought to light which make it seem more
than probable that General Lee was so eaten up
by vanity, by jealousy of Washington, and by a
love of his profession above a love of his country,
that he was a traitor at heart, and that instead of
being ready to sacrifice himself for his country, he
was ready to sacrifice the country to his own will-
ful ambition and pride.

But his disgrace was the end of all opposition to
Washington. From that time there was no ques-
tion as to who was at the head of the army and
the people.

CHAPTER XX.

THE LAST CAMPAIGN.

THE battle of Monmouth was the last great
battle before the final victory at Yorktown. The
three and a half years which intervened, however,
were busy years for Washington. He was obliged
to settle disputes between the French and Ameri-
can officers, to order the disposition of the forces,
and to give his attention to all the suggestions of
plans for action. He was greatly concerned that
Congress should be growing weak and ineffi-
cient. Here was a man, whom some had foolishly
supposed to be aiming at supreme power, only
anxious that the civil government should be
strengthened. He saw very clearly that while the
separate States were looking after their several
affairs, the Congress which represented the whole
country was losing its influence and power. " I
think our political system," he wrote, " may be
compared to the mechanism of a clock, and that
we should derive a lesson from it ; for it answers
no good purpose to keep the smaller wheels in
order, if the greater one, which is the support and
prime mover of the whole, is neglected."

He was indignant at the manner in which Con-

THE LAST CAMPAIGN. 195

gressmen, and others who were concerned in the
affairs of the country, spent their time in Phila-
delphia. " An assembly," he said, " a concert, a
dinner, a supper, that will cost three or four hun-
dred pounds, will not only take off men from act-
ing in. this business, but even from thinking of it;
while a great part of the officers of our army, from
absolute necessity, are quitting the service ; and
the more virtuous few, rather than do this, are
sinking by sure degrees into beggary and want."
How simply he himself lived may be seen by the
jocose letter which he wrote to a friend, inviting
him to dine with him at headquarters. The letter
is addressed to Dr. Cochran, surgeon-general in
the army : -

" DEAK DOCTOR, — I have asked Mrs. Cochran and
Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow ; but am I
not in honor bound to apprise them of their fare ? As
I hate deception, even where the imagination only is
concerned, I will. It is needless to premise that my
table is large enough to hold the ladies. Of this they
had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually
covered is rather more essential ; and this shall be the
purport of my letter.

" Since our arrival at this happy spot, we have had
a ham, sometimes a shoulder of bacon, to grace the head
of the table ; a piece of roast beef adorns the foot ; and
a disb of beans or greens, almost imperceptible, deco-
rates the centre. When the cook has a mind to cut a
figure, which I presume will be the case to morrow, we

196 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

have two beefsteak pies, or dishes of crabs, dividing
the space and reducing the distance between dish and
dish, to about six feet, which, without them, would be
near twelve feet apart. Of late he has had the surpris-
ing sagacity to discover that apples will make pies ; and
it is a question if, in the violence of his efforts, we do
not get one of apples, instead of having both of beef-
steaks. If the ladies can put up with such entertain-
ment, and will submit to partake of it on plates once
tin but now iron (not become so by the labor of scour-
ing), I shall be happy to see them ; and am, dear
Doctor, yours."

The main activity of the two armies in the last
years of the war was in the South, where General
Gates, and after him General Greene, were engaged
in a contest with Lord Cornwallis. Washington,
meanwhile, kept his position on the Hudson, where
he could watch the movements of the enemy still
in strong force in New York. The care of the
whole country was on his shoulders, for, except by
his personal endeavors, it was impossible for the
armies to secure even what support they did receive
from Congress and the state governments. The
letters written by Washington during this period
disclose the numberless difficulties which he was
obliged to meet and overcome. He was the one
man to whom all turned, and he gave freely of
himself. How completely he ignored his own
personal interests may be seen by an incident
which occurred at Mount Vernon.

THE LAST CAMPAIGN. 197

Several British vessels had sailed up the Chesa-
peake and Potomac, and had pillaged the country
roundabout. When these vessels lay off Mount
Vernon, the manager of Washington's estate,
anxious to save the property under his charge,
went out and bought off the marauders by a lib-
eral gift. Washington wrote at once, rebuking
him for his conduct. In the letter, he used these
words : —

" I am very sorry to hear of your loss : I am a little
sorry to hear of my own ; but that which gives me most
concern is that you should go on board the enemy's
vessel and furnish them with refreshments. It would
have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard
that, in consequence of your non-compliance with their
request, they had burnt my house and laid the plantation
in ruins. You ought to have considered yourself as
my representative, and should have reflected on the bad
example of communicating with the enemy, and making
a voluntary offer of refreshments to them with a view
to prevent a conflagration. It was not in your power,
I acknowledge, to prevent them from sending a flag on
shore, arid you did right to meet it ; but you should, in
the same instant that the business of it was unfolded,
have declared explicitly that it was improper for you
to yield to their request; after which, if they had pro-
ceeded to help themselves by force, you could but have
submitted ; and being unprovided for defense, this was
to be preferred to a feeble opposition, which only serves
as a pretext to burn and destroy."

In July, 1781, Washington's army, which was

198 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

watching Sir Henry Clinton in New York, was re-
enforced by the French troops, and at the same
time a French squadron cruised off the coast ready
to cooperate. General Greene was crowding Lord
Cornwallis in the South and edging him up into
Virginia, and the design was to keep the two
British armies apart, and defeat each. But the
siege of New York was likely to be a long one, and
the French admiral had orders to repair to the
West Indies in the fall. So time was precious.

Accordingly, Washington determined to mass
his troops in Virginia, unite the northern and
southern armies, and, in conjunction with the
French fleet, completely crush Cornwallis. It was
necessary, however, that Clinton, in New York,
should suspect nothing of this scheme, or else he,
too, would join Cornwallis. The change of plan
was carried out with great skill. Letters were
written detailing imaginary movements, and these
letters fell into the hands of the British general,
who supposed that great preparations were making
to attack him in New York. Meanwhile, a few
troops only were left in camp at White Plains,
while the rest of the army crossed the Hud son and
moved rapidly to Virginia. It was not until the
two armies were within reach of each other that
Clinton learned what had really been going on.

Washington took this opportunity to make a fly-
ing visit to Mount Vernon. It was the first time
he had been there since he left it to attend that

TUB LAST CAMPAIGN. 199

meeting of the Continental Congress at which he
had been chosen commander-in-chief. He had
never lost sight of his home, however. Thither
his thoughts often turned, and many a time, amid
the anxieties and cares of his burdensome life, he
looked with longing toward the quiet haven of
Mount Vernon. He wrote weekly to the manager
of his estate, and he gave him one general rule of
conduct in this wise : "Let the hospitality of the
house, with respect to the poor, be kept up. Let
no one go away hungry. If any of this kind of
people should be in want of corn, supply their
necessities, provided it does not encourage them
in idleness."

He stayed but a couple of days at Mount Ver-
non, where he was joined by Count Rocharnbeau,
and then he hastened to the headquarters of the
army at Williamsburg. It was now the middle of
September. Cornwallis was at Yorktown, and
everything depended on the ability of the com-
bined French and American forces to capture his
army before he could be reenforced by Clinton.
The leading generals of the American army were
there, eagerly directing operations, and Washing-
ton was at the front superintending the works, for
the men were fighting Cornwallis with the spade
as well as with cannon. Washington put the
match to the first gun that was fired. One who
was in the army at the time relates an incident
that came under his notice : —

200 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

" A considerable cannonading from the enemy -,
one shot killed three men, and mortally wounded
another. While the Rev. Mr. Evans, our chap-
lain, was standing near the commander-in-chief,
a shot struck the ground so near as to cover his
hat with sand. Being much agitated, he took off
his hat, and said, ' See here, General ! ' ' Mr.
Evans,' replied his excellency, with his usual com-
posure, 'you 'd better cany that home and show
it to your wife and children.' "

Indeed, it seemed to many that Washington bore
a charmed life, and it was often said that he was
under the special protection of God. He was fear-
less, and constantly exposed to danger, but his
constant escapes made him cool and self-possessed,
and the admiration of his men. He was excited
by the events which were hurrying the war to the
close, and he watched with intense earnestness the
several assaults which were made on the works.
Once he had dismounted and was standing by
Generals Knox and Lincoln at the grand battery.
It was not a safe place, for, though they were be-
hind a fortification, it was quite possible for shot
to enter the opening through which they were
looking. One of his aids, growing nervous, begged
him to leave, for the place was very much exposed.

" If you think so," said Washington, " you are
at liberty to step back." Presently a ball did
strike the cannon, and, rolling off, fell at Wash-
ington's feet. General Knox seized him by the
arm.

THE LAST CAMPAIGN. 201

" My dear General," said he, " we can't spare
you yet."

" It 's a spent ball," replied Washington, coolly.
" No harm is done." He watched the action until
the redoubts which his men had been assaulting
were taken ; then he drew a long breath of relief
and turned to Knox.

" The work is done," he said emphatically ;
"• and well done."

The siege was short, the work was sharp, for it
was full of enthusiasm and hope, and when, on
October 19, the army of Lord Cornwallis sur-
rendered to General Washington, there was a
tumult of rejoicing in camp which was long re-
membered. Washington issued orders that the
army should give thanks to God. " Divine ser-
vice," he said, " is to be performed to-morrow in
the several brigades and divisions. The com-
mander-in-chief earnestly recommends that the
troops not on duty should universally attend, with
that seriousness of deportment and gratitude of
heart which the recognition of such reiterated and
astonishing interpositions of Providence demand
of us."

The officers of the combined armies spent some
time in the neighborhood, and there was a great
ball given at Fredericksburg by the citizens of the
place. The most distinguished guest was the
mother of Washington, then seventy-four years
old, who came into the room leaning on the arm

202 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

of her son. She was quiet and dignified, as one
after another of the French officers made his bow
and his complimentary speech ; but I think there
must have been a great deal of motherly pride in
her heart, though it is said that when her George
came to see her alone after the victory at York-
town, she spoke to him of his health, marked the
lines of care on his face, spoke of his early days,
and gave him a mother's caution, but said nothing
of the glory he had won. To the last he was her
boy, and not America's hero.

CHAPTER XXI.

WASHINGTON RESIGNS HIS COMMISSION.

AFTER the surrender of Yorktown and the de-
parture of the French, Washington established his
headquarters at Newburgh on the Hudson. There
he remained with the army until it was disbanded ;
and the house in which he lived is carefully pre-
served and shown as an historical museum.

There is a pleasant story of La Fayette's affec-
tionate remembrance of the life there. Just be-
fore his death, which occurred in 1834, he gave a
dinner party in Paris to the American Minister
and some friends who had been old associates.
Later in the evening, when the hour for supper
came, the guests were ushered into a room which
was in strange contrast with the elegance of the
apartments they had been in. The ceiling was
low, with large beams crossing it ; there was a
single small, uncurtained window, and several
small doors. It looked more like an old-fashioned
Dutch kitchen than a room in a French house. A
long, rough table was meagrely set. A dish of
meat stood on it, some uncouth-looking pastry,
and wine in decanters and bottles, ready to be
poured out into glasses and camp-mugs.

204 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

" Do you know where we are now ? " asked La
Fayette as his companions looked about puzzled,
and as if in a dream. " Ah ! the seven doors and
one window ! and the silver camp-goblets ! We
are at Washington's headquarters on the Hudson,
fifty years ago ! " He had reproduced the room
as a surprise to his friends.

Peace did not come at once after Yorktown ;
there was still fighting in a desultory way, but all
knew that the end was not far off. Yet the sol-
diers could not go back to their homes, and Con-
gress was shamefully remiss about paying them.
Murmurs deep and loud arose, and Washington
suffered keenly from the neglect shown to the
army. It required all his patience and tact to
keep the murmurs from breaking out into violent
action. With no military duty to perform, and
with the impatience of men who were suffering in-
justice, the officers and men began to form all
sorts of plans.

One of the officers — and how many agreed
with him is not known, but the sentiment easily
took this form — one of the officers wrote to
Washington that it was clear that Congress was
a failure. The army had won independence, but
no reliance could be placed on the government.
How much more stable was the government of
England ! Would not such a government be af-
ter all the best for America ? It might not be

WASHINGTON RESIGNS HIS COMMISSION. 205

necessary to call the head of the government a
king, though even that title many would prefer,
but the head ought to have the power of a king.
There was much more to the same effect, and the
letter was really a feeler to see how Washington
would look upon such a movement, which, of
course, aimed to make him the monarch of the
new nation. Washington did not hesitate a mo-
ment, but wrote a letter which must have made
the officer's ears tingle, however honest he may
have been in his opinion. Washington said : —

" With a mixture of great surprise and astonishment,
I have read with attention the sentiments you have
submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, no occur-
rence in the course of the war has given me more pain-
ful sensations than your information of there being such
ideas existing in the army as you have expressed and I
must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity.
For the present, the communication of them will rest
in my own bosom, unless some further agitation of the
matter shall make a disclosure necessary. I am much
at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could
have given encouragement to an address, which, to me,
seems big with the greatest mischief that can befall any
country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of
myself, you could not have found a person to whom
your schemes are more disagreeable. At the same
time, in justice to my own feelings, I must add that no
man possesses a more sincere wish to see ample justice
done to the army than I do ; and as far as my powers
and influence in a constitutional way extend, they shall

206 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

be employed to the utmost of my abilities to effect it,
should there be any occasion. Let me conjure you,
then, if you have any regard for your country, concern
for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish
these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate,
as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the
like nature."

A graver peril arose, and Washington redeemed
his promise to stand by the army. In spite of the
united effort of the army and its friends in Con-
gress, no satisfactory arrangement was made for
paying the long-delayed wages due to the soldiers.
On March 10, 1783, a notice was issued in the
camp at Newburgh, calling a meeting of the offi-
cers. The notice was not signed by any name,
and with it was sent out an address which re-
hearsed the wrongs suffered by the army, and
hinted that the time had come when the soldiers
must take matters into their own hands and com-
pel Congress to attend to their demands. It was
an appeal to which the officers were ready to listen,
and every one was in so excited a condition that
it was impossible to say what might not be done.

Washington, at any rate, saw there was great
danger, and he at once seized the occasion. He
issued an order calling attention to the address,
and asking that the meeting should be postponed
four days and then should convene at his invita-
tion. This was to give the men time to cool off.
When the day came, Washington, as soon as the

WASHINGTON RESIGNS HIS COMMISSION. 207

meeting was called to order, made a long and pow-
erful speech. He was not a ready speaker, and
so, feeling the importance of the occasion, he had
written out what he had to say, and he began to
read it to the officers. He had read only a sen-
tence, when he stopped, took out his spectacles,
and said, as he put them on : —

" Gentlemen, you will pardon me for putting
on my glasses. I have grown gray in your ser-
vice, and I now find myself growing blind."

It was a simple thing to say, and simply said,
but it touched the soldiers, and made them very
tender to their commander, and more ready even
than before to listen to his counsel. Washington
went on to say : —

" If my conduct heretofore has not evinced to you
that I have been a faithful friend to the army, my dec-
laration of it at this time would be equally unavailing
and improper. But, as I was among the first who em-
barked in the cause of our common country ; as I have
never left your side one moment, save when called from
you on public duty ; as I have been the constant com-
panion and witness of your distresses, and not among
the last to feel and acknowledge your merits ; as I have
considered my own military reputation as inseparably
connected with that of the army ; as my heart has ever
expanded with joy, when I have heard its praises, and
my indignation has arisen, when the mouth of detrac-
tion has been opened against it ; it can scarcely be sup-
posed, at this late stage of the war, that I am indiffer-
ent to its interests."

208 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

He used all his personal influence to heal the
breach between the army and Congress, and he
brought the officers back to a more reasonable
mind. All the while he was writing to members
of Congress and doing his utmost to bring about
a just treatment of the army.

When the time came to disband the army,
Washington, ready as he was to go back to his
home, could not forget that the work of the past
seven years would not be completed until the peo-
ple which had become independent was united
under a strong government. He was the fore-
most man in the country ; he was also profoundly
aware of the difficulties through which the people
were yet to pass, and he addressed a long letter to
the governors of the several states. Congress was
weak and unable to take the lead. The states
were each provided with governments, and were
the real powers, but Washington saw clearly that
it would not do to have thirteen independent
governments in the country, each looking only
after its own interests. So in this letter he tried
to show the states the importance of four things :

1. An indissoluble union of the states under
one head.

2. The payment of all the debts contracted by
the country in the war.

3. The establishment of a uniform militia sys-
tem throughout the country. He did not advise
having a standing army, but he thought all the

WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL TO HIS OFFICERS.

I

WASHINGTON RESIGNS HIS COMMISSION. 209

men should be drilled in their neighborhoods,
formed into companies, and be ready in any peril
to take up arms again.

4. The cultivation of a spirit of confidence be-
tween different parts of the country. He had
seen so much jealousy and prejudice that he knew
how dangerous these were to the peace of the
country.

At last the time came when the army was dis-
banded. A few of the troops only and their offi-
cers went with Washington to New York when
the British left the city. There was rejoicing
everywhere ; but it was a sorrowful moment when
Washington took leave in person of the officers

jo had stood by him through the long, dreary
, ears of the war. He was about to leave the city
to be ferried across the North River to the Jersey
hore, and his old friends gathered to say good-
tj at Fraunce's Tavern, in Broad Street. When
he entered the room he could scarcely command
iiis voice. He said a word or two, and they all
drank a farewell toast, as the custom was in those
days. Then Washington said : " I cannot come
to each of you to take my leave, but shall be
obliged if each of you will come and take me by
the hand."

General Knox stood nearest, and he held out
his hand. The tears were in Washington's eyes
as he turned to his old comrade and grasped his

210 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

hand. He drew the strong man to him — Knox
was nearly twenty years younger than Washing-
ton, and very dear to him — and kissed him. Not
a word could either of them speak. Another
general followed and another, each greeted with
the same affection ; and then Washington left the
room, passed through the corps of infantry which
stood on guard, and walked to Whitehall, followed
by the whole company, a silent procession. He
entered the barge, turned as the boat pushed off,
and waved his hat in silent adieu. The officers
returned the salute in the same way, and then
turned and in silence inarched back to Fraunce's.

Washington went to Philadelphia. Congress
was in session at Annapolis, but the Treasury was
in Philadelphia. On receiving his commission as
commander-in-chief, Washington had announced
that he would receive no money for services, but
would keep an exact account of all his expenses.
That account he had kept as carefully and scrupu-
lously as any book-keeper in a bank, and he now
rendered it to the comptroller of the treasury.
It was in his own handwriting, every item set
down and explained. I know of few incidents in
Washington's career which show the character of
the man better than this. He held that a sacred
trust had been reposed in him, and he meant to
be faithful in the least particular.

On December 23, 1783, Congress was assem-
bled at Annapolis. The gallery was filled with

WASHINGTON RESIGNS HIS COMMISSION. 211

ladies. The governor, council, and legislature of
Maryland, several officers, and the consul-general
of France were on the floor. The members of
Congress were seated and wore their hats to sig-
nify that they represented the government. The
spectators stood with bare heads. General Wash-
ington entered and was conducted by the secretary
of Congress to a seat. When all was quiet, Gen-
eral Mifflin, who was then president of Congress,
turned to Washington and said : " The United
States, in Congress assembled, is prepared to re-
ceive the communications of the Commander-in-
chief."

Washington rose and read a short address, in
which he resigned his commission. He delivered
the paper into the hands of the president, who
replied with a little speech ; and Washington was
now a private citizen. The next day he left
Annapolis, and made all haste to return to his
beloved Mount Vernon.

CHAPTER XXII.

MR. WASHINGTON.

IT was hard for Washington at first to forget
that he was no longer commander-in-chief. He
had so long been accustomed to wake early, and
at once begin to think of the cares of the day,
that it was a novel sensation to discover that he
had no cares beyond looking after his estate. It
chanced that the winter of 1783-84 was a very
severe one. The roads were blocked with snow,
the streams were frozen, and Washington found
himself almost a prisoner at Mount Vernon. He
was not even able to go to Fredericksburg to see
his mother, until the middle of February. He
was not sorry for his enforced quiet. It left him
leisure to look over his papers and enjoy the com-
pany of his wife and his wife's grandchildren,
whom he had adopted as his own children. His
public papers had been put into the hands of
Colonel Richard Varick, in 1781, and they were
now returned to him, arranged and classified and
copied into volumes, in a manner to delight the
methodical soul of their author.

As the spring came on, and the snow and ice
melted, the roads were again open, and Mount

MR. WASHINGTON. 213

Vernon was soon busy with its old hospitality.
Washington foresaw that he would have plenty
of visitors, but he did not mean to let his life be
at the mercy of everybody, and he meant to keep
up his regular habits and his plain living. " My
manner of living is plain," he wrote to a friend,
" and I do not mean to be put out of it. A glass
of wine and a bit of mutton are always ready,
and such as will be content to partake of them are
always welcome. Those who expect more will be
disappointed."

The house at Mount Vernon before this time
had been very much like that in which Washing-
ton was born ; now he found it necessary to en-
large it, and accordingly added an extension at
each end, making it substantially as it now ap-
pears. He was his own architect, and he drew
every plan and specification for the workmen with
his own hand. He amused himself also with lay-
ing out the grounds about his house, and plant-
ing trees, — a great pleasure to him. Every
morning he arose early, and dispatched his cor-
respondence before breakfast, which was at half-
past seven. His horse stood ready at the door,
and as soon as breakfast was over, he was in the
saddle, visiting the various parts of his estate.
Sometimes he went hunting, for he never lost his
fondness for the chase. He dined at three o'clock,
and usually spent the afternoon in the library,
sometimes working at his papers till nine o'clock ;

214 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

but when not pressed by business, and when his
house was full of guests, he spent the evening
with them. If he was alone with his family, he
read aloud to them ; and very often on Sundays,
when they could not go to church, he read aloud
a sermon and prayers.

Guests crowded upon him, and he was espe-
cially glad to see his old comrades. A visit from
La Fayette was the occasion of a very gay time,
when Mount Vernon was full of visitors, and the
days were given to sport.

Washington had constant applications from per-
sons who wished to write his life or paint his por-
trait. There was a sculptor named Wright who
undertook to get a model of Washington's face.
" Wright came to Mount Vernon," so Washing-
ton tells the story, " with the singular request
that I should permit him to take a model of my
face, in plaster of Paris, to which I consented
with some reluctance. He oiled my features, and
placing me flat upon my back, upon a cot, pro-
ceeded to daub my face with the plaster. Whilst
I was in this ludicrous attitude, Mrs. Washington
entered the room, and seeing my face thus over-
spread with plaster, involuntarily exclaimed. Her
cry excited in me a disposition to smile, which
gave my mouth a slight twist, or compression of
the lips, that is now observable in the busts which
Wright afterward made." A more successful
sculptor was Houdon, who was commissioned by

MR. WASHINGTON. 215

Virginia to make a statue of Washington. He
also took a plaster model, and the fine statue
which he made stands in Richmond. A portrait
painter, named Pine, also paid a visit to Mount
Vernon about this time with a letter from one of
Washington's friends to whom Washington wrote
during Pine's visit : —

" ' In for a penny, in for a pound,' is an old adage.
I am so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pen-
cil that I am now altogether at their beck, and sit, like
' patience on a monument,' whilst they are delineating
the lines of my face. It is a proof among many others
of what habit and custom can effect. At first I was
as impatient at the request, and as restive under the
operation, as a colt is of the saddle. The next time I
submitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing.
Now no dray moves more readily to the thill than I do
to the painter's chair. It may easily be conceived,
therefore, that I yielded a ready obedience to your re-
quest, and to the views of Mr. Pine."

Washington was a most considerate and court-
eous host. He was very fond of young people,
but his silent ways and the reputation which he
enjoyed as a great man made it difficult for the
young always to be easy in his presence. The
storv is told of his coming into a room once, when
dancing was going on, and the sport suddenly
ceased. Washington begged the young people to
go on, but they refused until he left the room.
Then, after they felt free again to dance, he cam§
back and peeped through the open door.

216 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

He was very apt to affect older people in the
same way. He was a large man, with large
hands and feet, and eyes that looked steadily at
one. When not speaking he was very apt to for-
get there were other people in the room, and his
lips would move as he talked to himself while
thinking hard upon some matter. But he did
not neglect people. One of his visitors tells this
story : u The first evening I spent under the wing
of his hospitality, we sat a full hour at table, by
ourselves, without the least interruption, after the
family had retired. I was extremely oppressed
with a severe cold and excessive coughing, con-
tracted from the exposure of a harsh winter jour-
ney. He pressed me to use some remedies, but I
declined doing so. As usual, after retiring, my
coughing increased. When some time had
elapsed, the door of my room was gently opened,
and, on drawing my bed-curtains, to my utter as-
tonishment I beheld Washington himself stand-
ing at my bedside, with a bowl of hot tea in his
hand. I was mortified and distressed beyond ex-
pression."

Although Washington had now retired to
Mount Vernon, and seemed perfectly willing to
spend the rest of his days as a country gentleman,
it was impossible for him to do so. The leaders
of the country needed him, and he was himself
too deeply interested in affairs to shut his eyes
and ears. He was especially interested in the

MR. WASHINGTON. 217

western country, which then meant the Ohio
Valley and the region bordered by the Great
Lakes. In the autumn of 1784, he made a tour
beyond the Alleghanies, for the purpose of look-
ing after the lands which he owned there ; but he
looked about him not only as a land-owner, but as
a wise, far-seeing statesman.

It was a wild journey to take in those days.
Washington traveled nearly seven hundred miles
on horseback, and had to carry camping conven-
iences and many of his supplies on pack-horses.
He had especially in mind to see if there might
be a way of connecting by a canal the water sys-
tem of Virginia with the Western rivers. After
he came back, he wrote a long letter to the gov-
ernor of Virginia, in which he gave the result of
his observation and reflection. He was not merely
considering how a profitable enterprise could be
undertaken, but he was thinking how necessary it
was to bind the western country to the eastern in
order to strengthen the Union. Many people had
crossed the mountains and were scattered in the
Mississippi Valley. They found the Mississippi
River a stream easy to sail down, but the Span-
iards held the mouth of the river, and if the
latter chose to make friends with those western
settlers, they might easily estrange them from the
eastern states. Besides this, Great Britain was
reaching down toward this last territory from
Canada. In every way, it seemed to him of im-

218 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

portance that good roads and good water com-
munication should bind the East and the West
together. He thought Virginia was the state to
do this. It extended then far to the westward,
and it had great rivers flowing to the sea. It was
the most important state in the country, and it
was very natural that Washington should look to
it to carry out his grand ideas ; for the separate
states had the power at that time — Congress was
unable to do anything. It is interesting to see
how Washington, who thought he could go back
to Mount Vernon and be a planter, was unable to
keep his mind from working upon a great plan
which intended the advantage of a vast number
of people. He was made to care for great things,
and he cared for them naturally.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CALLED TO THE HELM.

WHILE Washington was busy planting trees at
Mount Vernon and making excursions to see his
western lands, the country was like a vessel which
had no captain or pilot, drifting into danger.
During the War for Independence, one of the
greatest difficulties which Washington had to
overcome was the unwillingness of the several
states to act together as one nation. They called
themselves the United States of America, but they
were very loosely united. Congress was the only
body that held them together, and Congress had
110 power to make the states do what they did
not care to do. So long as they all were fighting
for independence, they managed to hold together ;
but as soon as the war was over and the states
were recognized as independent, it was very hard
to get them to do anything as one nation. Every
state was looking out for itself, and afraid that
the others might gain some advantage over it.

This could not go on forever. They must be
either wholly independent of one another or more
closely united. The difficulty was more apparent
where two states were neighbors. Virginia and

220 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Massachusetts might manage to live apart, though
in that case troubles would be sure to arise, but
how could Virginia and Maryland maintain their
individual independence ? The Chesapeake and
Potomac seemed to belong to one as much as to
the other ; and when foreign vessels came up the
stream, was each state to have its own rules and
regulations ? No. They must treat strangers at
any rate in some way that would not make each
the enemy of the other.

These two states felt this so strongly that they
appointed a commission to consider what could
be done. Washington was a member of the com-
mission, and asked all the gentlemen to his house.
They not only discussed the special subject com-
mitted to them, but they looked at the whole mat-
ter of the regulation of commerce in a broad way,
and agreed to propose to the two states to appoint
other commissioners, who should advise with Con-
gress and ask all the states of the Union to send
delegates to a meeting where they could, arrange
some system by which all the states should act
alike in their treatment of foreign nations and of
each other.

That was exactly what Congress ought to have
been able to do, but could not, because nobody
paid any attention to it. Nor did this meeting,
which was called at Annapolis in September, 1786,
accomplish very much. Only five states sent del-
egates, and these delegates were so carefully in-

INDEPENDENCE HALL.

CALLED TO THE HELM. 221

structed not to do much, that it was impossible for
the convention to settle affairs. Still, it was a
step forward. It was very clear to the delegates
that a general convention of all the states was
necessary, and so they advised another meeting at
which all the thirteen states should be represented,
and the whole subject of the better union of the
States should be considered.

This meeting, which was the great Constitu-
tional Convention of 1787, was held in Philadel-
phia, and to it Virginia sent George Washington
as one of her delegates. He was heart and soul
in favor of the movement. It was what he had
been urging on all his correspondents for a long
time. He was at first reluctant to go back into
public life after having so completely retired ; but
as soon as he saw that it was his duty to accept
the appointment, he set to work to qualify himself
for taking part in the deliberations of the conven-
tion. Probably no one in America understood
better than he the character of Americans and the
special dangers through which the country was
passing ; but several, no doubt, were better in-
formed about the practical working of government
and about the history of other confederations.
He had never been very much of a reader of
books, but he had been a member for many years
of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and so knew
how government was carried on on a small scale,
and now he began to read diligently and to com-

222 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

pare accounts of ancient and modern political
unions. He made abstracts of them, and, in fact,
went to work as if he were at school, so in earnest
was he to learn this important lesson.

On May 9, 1787, Washington set out from
Mount Vernon in his carriage for Philadelphia.
He was a famous man and could not go to the
convention without attracting attention. So, when
he reached Chester, in Pennsylvania, he was met
by General Mifflin, who was then Speaker of the
Assembly of Pennsylvania, and by various public
men, who escorted him on the way. At the ferry
across the Schuylkill, where Gray's Ferry Bridge
now is, he was met by a company of light horse,
and so entered the city. One of his first errands
was to call on Benjamin Franklin, who was Presi-
dent of Pennsylvania, as the governor was then
called. No doubt they talked long and earnestly
about the work before them, for they were the
two most eminent men in the convention.

Washington was made the presiding officer of
the convention. For four months it met from day
to day, engaged in the great work of forming the
Constitution under which we are now governed.
There were many long and earnest debates ; and
the members felt the importance of the work
upon which they were engaged. At last, the Con-
stitution was formed. It was not satisfactory to
everybody, but the members all agreed to sign it,
and recommend it to the country for adoption.

CALLED TO THE HELM. 223

George Washington, as president of the conven-
tion, was the first to set his name down ; and there
is a tradition that as he took the pen in his hand
he arose from his seat, considered a moment, and
then said : —

" Should the states reject this excellent Consti-
tution, the probability is that an opportunity will
never again be offered to cancel another in peace ;
the next will be drawn in blood."

Washington, as president of the convention,
was directed to draw up a letter, stating what the
convention had done, and send it with the Con-
stitution to Congress. This he did. He was not
entirely satisfied with the Constitution, as he
wrote to Patrick Henry : " I wish the Constitution
which is offered had been more perfect ; but I sin-
cerely believe it is the best that could be obtained
at this time. And, as a constitutional door is
opened for amendments hereafter, the adoption of
it, under the present circumstances of the Union,
is, in my opinion, desirable."

He said at first that he should not say anything
for or against the Constitution. If it were good,
it would work its way ; if bad, it would recoil on
those who drew it up. Perhaps he thought it was
not becoming in those who discussed its parts and
finally signed it, to do anything more than send it
out and leave the people to do what they would
with it. But he could not keep silent long.
Everybody was debating it ; the principal mein-

224 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

bers of the convention were defending it ; there
was danger that it would not be adopted, and soon
Washington, in his letters, was using arguments
in support of it. There is no doubt that his name
at the head of the paper did a great deal toward
inducing people to accept it. It was more than a
year before enough states had adopted the Con-
stitution to make it the law of the land, but as
time went on, and it was more certain that the
new government would go into operation, the
question arose as to who should be the first Presi-
dent of the United States. It can hardly be
called a question ; at any rate, it was answered at
once by all. Every one named Washington, and
his friends began to write to him as if there could
be no doubt on this point. The most distinguished
advocate of the new Constitution, Alexander Ham-
ilton, who had been one of Washington's aids in
the war, wrote to him : —

" I take it for granted, sir, you have concluded
to comply with what will, no doubt, be the general
call of your country in relation to the new govern-
ment. You will permit me to say that it is indis-
pensable you should lend yourself to its first oper-
ations. It is to little purpose to have introduced
a system, if the weightiest influence is not given
to its firm establishment in the outset."

Washington was by no means elated at the
prospect. On the contrary, he was extremely re-
luctant to be president. He was not old ; he was

CALLED TO THE HELM. 225

fifty-seven years of age when the election took
place, but his hard life as a soldier had broken
his constitution, and the cares and anxieties he
had undergone had made him feel old. " At my
time of life," he wrote to La Fayette, " and under
my circumstances, the increasing infirmities of
nature and the growing love of retirement do not
permit me to entertain a wish beyond that of liv-
ing and dying an honest man on my own farm.
Let those follow the pursuits of ambition and
fame who have a keener relish for them, or who
may have more years in store for the enjoyment."
He was perfectly sincere in saying this. He knew
that some people would not believe him, and
would assert that he was only saying all this to
get the credit of humility ; but his best friends
believed him, and to one of these he wrote : " If
I should receive the appointment, and if I should
be prevailed upon to accept it, the acceptance
would be attended with more diffidence and re-
luctance than ever I experienced before in my life.
It would be, however, with a fixed and sole deter-
mination of lending whatever assistance might be
in my power to promote the public weal, in hopes
that, at a convenient and early period, my services
might be dispensed with, and that I might be per-
mitted once more to retire, to pass an unclouded
evening, after the stormy day of life, in the bosom
of domestic tranquillity."

There never was any doubt about the people's
choice. Every vote was cast for Washington.

CHAPTER XXIV.

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON.

IT was on April 16, 1789, that Washington
left Mount Vernon for New York, where Con-
gress first met, and where he was to be inaugurated
president. The country all along the route was
eager to see him, and at every place through which
he passed there were processions and triumphal
arches and ringing of bells. Some of the signs
of welcome were queer, and some were beautiful
and touching. When he crossed the Schuylkill,
there was a series of arches under which he was to
ride ; and when he came to the first one, a laurel
wreath was let down upon his head. The people
who arranged that exhibition must have been very
anxious as to how it would turn out. At Trenton,
where everybody remembered the famous battle
he had fought, the women had put up a great
triumphal arch resting upon thirteen columns,
with a great dome crowned by a sunflower; then,
as he rode through, he came upon a company of
women and girls who marched toward him, strew-
ing flowers and singing. When he reached New
York, guns were fired ; and a vast crowd of peo-
ple, headed by the governor, was waiting to re-
ceive him.

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 227

Congress had begun its sessions at Federal Hall,
which stood where the present Treasury building
stands in Wall Street. The day set for the inaugu-
ration was April 30. Precisely at noon, the pro-
cession moved from the house where Washington
was lodged, through what is now Pearl Street and
Broad Street, to the Hall. Washington entered
the Senate chamber, where John Adams, who was
vice-president and therefore presiding over the
Senate, received him in the presence of the Senate
and House, and then escorted him to a balcony
at the front of the hall. A crimson-covered table
stood on it, holding a large Bible. Below, Broad
Street and Wall Street were packed with people,
as were also the windows and the roofs of the
houses near by. They set up a great shout as
Washington appeared. He came to the front,
laid his hand on his heart, and bowed to the
people.

The multitude could see the commanding fig-
ure of the great general as he stood bareheaded
on the balcony. He was dressed in a suit of
brown cloth of American manufacture, with knee-
breeches and white silk stockings and silver shoe-
buckles. His hair was dressed and powdered, as
was the custom then. They saw near him John
Adams and Robert R. Livingston, the chancellor
of the State of New York, and distinguished men
— generals and others ; but their eyes were bent
on Washington. They saw Chancellor Livingston

228 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

stand as if speaking to him, and the secretary of
the Senate holding the open Bible, on which Wash-
ington's hand lay. Those nearest could hear the
chancellor pronounce the oath of office and Wash-
ington's reply, "I swear — so help me, God!"
and could see him bow and kiss the Bible.

Then the chancellor stepped forward, waved his
hand, and said aloud : " Long live George Wash-
ington, President of the United States." At the
same time, a flag, as a signal, was run up on the
cupola of the Hall. Instantly cannon were fired,
bells rung, and the people shouted. Washington
saluted them, and then turned back into the
Senate chamber, where he read his inaugural ad-
dress, in a low voice, for he was evidently deeply
affected, — great occasions always solemnized him,
— and after the address, he went on foot, with
many others, to St. Paul's Church, where prayers
were read by Dr. Provoost, Bishop of the Episco-
pal Church, and one of the chaplains of Congress.
At night, there were fireworks and bonfires.

Thus, with the good-will of the people and the
confidence of all the sections, — however suspicious
they might be of one another, — Washington be-
gan his career as president. For eight years he re-
mained in office. His character was now so fixed
that there is little new to be learned about it
from that time forward ; but there were many
events that made more clear how wise, how just,
how honorable, and how faithful to his trust he

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 229

was. He had been very loath to take upon him-
self the duties of president, but when once he had
been placed in the chair, he let nothing stand in
the way of the most thorough discharge of his
duties.

Now came into play all those habits which he
had been forming from boyhood. As president
of the whole people, it was his business to have an
oversight of all the interests of the young nation,
and, as the first president, he had the opportunity
of setting an example to those who were to come
after him. It is one of the most excellent gifts
to the American people that they should have had
for their first president a man so well rounded
and so magnanimous as George Washington.
There were as yet no political parties, though
there were the seeds of parties in the opposite
ways in which public men regarded the new Con-
stitution. Washington called to his cabinet men
who disliked one another, and who were really as
much opposed to one another as if they belonged
to antagonistic parties ; but they never could
draw Washington away from a strict impartiality.
He made Thomas Jefferson secretary of state,
because he was most thoroughly acquainted with
foreign affairs ; and he made Alexander Hamilton
secretary of the treasury, because he had shown
himself the most competent man to plan a way
out of the greatest peril which beset the young
nation. But Jefferson and Hamilton cordially

230 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

disliked each other, and were decidedly of opposite
ways of thinking.

Washington, however, did not rest contented
with choosing the best men to carry on the gov-
ernment. In those days, when the country had
only a small population, a small area, and a small
business, it was possible for one man to know very
much more fully the details of government than it
is now. His lifelong habits of methodical indus-
try enabled Washington to get through an amount
of work which seems extraordinary. For exam-
ple, he read from beginning to end all the letters
which had passed between Congress and foreign
governments since the treaty of peace in 1783,
making abstracts and briefs of them, so as to
know thoroughly the whole history of the rela-
tions of the country to foreign governments. He
required from every head of department whom
he found in office a report of the state of public
business. He treated these reports as he had the
foreign correspondence, and in this way he mas-
tered all the internal affairs of the nation. The
result was that he had his own judgment about
any matter of importance which came up, and
was not obliged to follow the lead of the cabinet
officers.

There were, of course, only a few public offices
to be filled then, and it was quite possible for
Washington to know personally most of the men
who should be appointed to fill them. He thought

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 231

this one of the most important parts of his work
as president ; because he knew well that it is not
rules and regulations, but men, that carry on any
government or any business, and that, if he could
put honest and capable men, who were unselfishly
devoted to the country, into all the offices, he
would secure a wise administration of the laws.
From the first, he began to be besieged by appli-
cants for office, and he made immediately the very
sensible rule that he would not give any pledge
or encouragement to any applicant. He heard
what they and their friends had to say, and then
made up his mind deliberately. He had, however,
certain principles in his mind which governed him
in making appointments, and they were so high
and honorable, and show so well the character of
the man, that I copy here what he had said with
regard to the matter : —

" Scarcely a day passes in which applications of one
kind or another do not arrive ; insomuch that, had I
not early adopted some general principles, I should be-
fore this time have been wholly occupied in this business.
As it is, I have found the number of answers, which I
have been necessitated to give in my own hand, an al-
most insupportable burden to me. The points in which
all these answers have agreed in substance are, that,
should it be my lot to go again into public office, I
would go without being under any possible engage-
ments of any nature whatsoever ; that, so far as I knew
my own heart, I would not be in the remotest degree

232 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

influenced in making nominations by motives arising
from the ties of family or blood ; and that, on the other
hand, three things, in my opinion, ought principally to
be regarded, namely : the fitness of characters to fill
offices, the comparative claims from the former merits
and sufferings in service of the different candidates,
and the distribution of appointments in as equal a pro-
portion as might be to persons belonging to the differ-
ent States in the Union. Without precautions of this
kind, I clearly foresaw the endless jealousies and pos-
sibly the fatal consequences to which a government,
depending altogether on the good-will of the people for
its establishment, would certainly be exposed in its
early stages. Besides, I thought, whatever the effect
might be in pleasing or displeasing any individuals at
the present moment, a due concern for my own reputa-
tion, not less decisively than a sacred regard to the in-
terests of the community, required that I should hold
myself absolutely at liberty to act, while in office, with
a sole reference to justice and the public good."

To protect himself from being at everybody's
call, and so unable to be of the greatest service,
he established certain rules. Every Tuesday, be-
tween the hours of three and four, he received
whoever might come. Every Friday afternoon
Mrs. Washington received with him. At all
other times, he could be seen only by special ap-
pointment. He never accepted invitations to din-
ner, and that has been the rule of presidents ever
since ; but he invited constantly to his own table
foreign ministers, members of the government,

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 233

and other guests. He received no visits on Sun-
day. He went to church with his family in the
morning, and spent the afternoon by himself.
The evening he spent with his family and some-
times had with him an intimate friend.

He still kept up his old habit of rising at four
and going to bed at nine. Mrs. Washington had
a grave little formula with which she used to dis-
miss visitors in the evening : —

" The General always retires at nine o'clock,
and I usually pi'ecede him."

His recreation he took chiefly in driving and
riding. He never lost his liking for a good horse,
and he knew what a good horse was. He had a
servant who had been General Braddock's ser-
vant, and had been with Washington ever since
the battle of the Monongahela. Bishop, as he
was named, was a terrible disciplinarian, and de-
voted to his master's interests. At sunrise every
day he would go to the stables, where the boys
had been at work since dawn grooming the gen-
eral's horses. Woe to them if they had been
careless ! Bishop marched in with a muslin
handkerchief in his hand and passed it over the
coats of the horses ; if a single stain appeared on
the muslin, the boy who groomed the horse had
to take a thrashing. It was no light matter to
groom a horse in those days, for, just as the heads
of gentlemen were plastered and bewigged, so the
horses were made to undergo what would seem to

234 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

us now a rather absurd practice. The night be-
fore a horse was to be ridden, he was covered from
head to foot with a paste made of whiting and
other ingredients ; then he was well wrapped in
cloth and laid to sleep on clean straw. By the
next morning the paste had hardened, and it was
then vigorously rubbed in, and the horse curried
and brushed. The result was a glossy and satiny
coat. The hoofs were blackened and polished,
the mouth washed, the teeth picked and cleaned,
and the horse was then ready to be saddled and
brought out.

Mrs. Washington was a domestic, home-loving
body, but a lady of great dignity and sweetness
of disposition, who moved serenely by the side of
her husband, receiving his guests in the same
spirit. She never talked about politics, but was
evenly courteous to every one. She was like her
husband, too, in her exactness and her attention
to little details of economy. While she was in
the midst of her duties as president's wife, she
wrote to one of her family : " I live a very dull
life here, and know nothing that passes in the
town. I never go to any public place ; indeed, I
think I am more like a state prisoner than any-
thing else. There are certain bounds set for me
which I must not depart from ; and, as I cannot
do as I like, I am obstinate and stay at home a
great deal." But her real heart was at Mount
Vernon and in her household affairs. " I send to

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 235

dear Maria," she writes, " A piece of chene to
make her a frock, and a piece of muslin, which I
hope is long enough for an apron for you. In ex-
change for it, I beg you will give me a worked
muslin apron you have, like my gown that I made
just before I left home, of worked muslin, as I
wish to make a petticoat to my gown, of the two
aprons."

Washington himself never lost sight of Mount
Vernon. Just as in his absence, during the war,
he required weekly reports from the manager of
his plantation, so now he kept up the same prac-
tice. Occasionally, when Congress wras not in
session, he could go home, but his visits were
short and rare. It may seem strange to some
that a soldier and a statesman like Washington
should be also an ardent farmer ; but that he was.
I suppose the one occupation that Washington
loved was farming ; in his earlier life there is no
doubt that he cared most for a soldier's fortune,
but after he was fairly in possession of Mount
Vernon, the care of that place became his passion,
and for the rest of his life he was first and last a
farmer. For my part, I like to think of Wash-
ington in this way, for the one indispensable art is
the art of agriculture ; all other arts are built upon
it, and the man who has a piece of land, and can
raise from it enough to feed and clothe and shel-
ter himself and his family, is the most indepen-
dent of men, and has a real place on the earth
which he can call his own.

236 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

During his presidency, Washington made two
tours through the country, — one into the East-
ern and one into the Southern States. He was
received with special honor in New England, for
he was less familiarly known to the people there,
and they made a great holiday in every town
through which the president passed. By these
tours, he made himself acquainted with the needs
of the country and with the persons who were the
leaders of the people.

But there were parts which he could not visit,
yet in which he felt the deepest interest and con-
cern. We have seen how, from time to time, he
visited the country beyond the Alleghanies, and
how much importance he attached to the settle-
ment of the West. The greatest difficulty in the
early days was through the relations which the
people had with the Indians. Washington knew
the Indians well ; he knew how to get along with
them, and he knew also what dangerous enemies
they were. At the end of his first term as presi-
dent, it became necessary to send a military expe-
dition to the frontiers, and General St. Clair was
placed at the head of it. When he came to bid
Washington good-by, his old chief gave him a
solemn warning : " You have your instructions
from the secretary of war. I had a strict eye to
them, and will add but one word : Beware of a
surprise ! You know how the Indians fight. I
repeat it — beware of a surprise ! "

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 237

But St. Clair was surprised and terribly de-
feated. It was a bitter disappointment to Wash-
ington, who received the news of the disaster one
December day when he was at dinner. His pri-
vate secretary, Mr. Lear, was called out of the
room by a servant, who said there was a messen-
ger without who insisted on seeing the president.
Mr. Lear went to him and found that he was an
officer from St. Glair's army with despatches which
he refused to give to any one but President Wash-
ington. Mr. Lear went back to the dining-room
and whispered this to Washington, who excused
himself to the company and went out to hear the
officer's news. He came back shortly after and
resumed his place at the table, but without ex-
plaining the reason of his absence. He was, how-
ever, absorbed, as he often was, and muttered to
himself ; and one of his neighbors caught the
words, " I knew it would be so ! "

It was an evening when Mrs. Washington was
holding a reception, and the gentlemen, when
leaving the dining-room, went directly into the
drawing-room. Washington went with them. He
was calm and showed no signs of disturbance. He
spoke as usual to every one, and at last the guests
had gone. Mrs. Washington also retired, and the
General was left alone with his secretary. He was
silent at first, walking to and fro in the room.
Then he took a seat by the fire, and motioned
Mr. Lear to sit by him. He could no longer con-

238 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

tain himself ; he must have some relief, and sud-
denly he burst out : " It 's all over ! St. Glair 's
defeated ! routed ! The officers nearly all killed ;
the men by wholesale ; the rout complete — too
shocking to think of, and a surprise into the bar-
gain ! " He jerked out the sentences as if he were
in pain. He got up and walked up and down
again like a caged lion, stood still, and once more
burst out in passionate speech : " Yes, here, on
this very spot I took leave of him ; I wished him
success and honor. ' You have your instructions
from the secretary of war,' said I. ' I had a strict
eye to them, and will add but one word : BEWARE
OF A SURPRISE ! You know how the Indians
fight ; I repeat it — BEWARE OF A SURPRISE ! '
He went off with that, my last warning, thrown
into his ears. And yet ! — To suffer that army
to be cut to pieces, butchered, tomahawked, by a
surprise — the very thing I guarded him against ! "

— and the strong man threw up his hands while
he shook with terrible emotion : " He 's worse
than a murderer ! How can he answer for it to
his country ! The blood of the slain is upon him

— the curse of widows and orphans — the curse
of Heaven ! "

Mr. Lear was dumb. He had never seen or
heard Washington like this. It was a pent-up
volcano bursting forth. Washington himself re-
covered his control. He sat down again. He was
silent. He felt, as a strong man does who has for

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 239

a moment broken the bounds of restraint, a noble
shame, not at his indignation, but at having for
a moment thus given way. " This must not go
beyond this room," he said presently, in a quiet,
almost whispered tone. Then he added, after a
pause : " General St. Clair shall have justice. I
looked hastily through the despatches ; saw the
whole disaster, but not all the. particulars. I will
receive him without displeasure ; I will hear him
without prejudice ; he shall have full justice."

Washington kept his word. Perhaps all the
more for this outbreak, he determined that St.
Clair should be treated with scrupulous justice.
But the incident illustrates the character of Wash-
ington. Deep down in his nature was a passionate
regard for law, for obedience, for strict account-
ability. It was this which made him in minor
matters so punctual, so orderly, so precise in his
accounts ; in larger matters, it made him unself-
ishly and wholly consecrated to the country which
trusted him, just in all his dealings, and the soul
of honor. This consuming passion for law made
him govern himself, keep in restraint the fierce
wrath which leaped up within him, and measure
his acts and words with an iron will. The two
notable scenes when his anger blazed out and
burned up his self-control as if it were a casing
of straw were caused by Lee's faithlessness at
Monmouth and St. Glair's carelessness. On each
of these occasions, it was not an offense against

240 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

himself which woke his terrible wrath ; it was an
offense against the country, against God ; for in
the moment of his anger he saw each of these
two men false to the trust reposed in him.

Yet the difficulties with the Indians were as
nothing to the perils which beset the country in
its intercourse with Europe. At that time, the
United States was almost a part of Europe. All
its business was with France and England. It had
declared and achieved political independence, but
was nevertheless connected by a thousand ties of
commerce, law, and custom with the Old World.
The fierce revolution in France was in part set in
flame by the example of America ; and when war
broke out between England and France, there was
scarcely a man in America who did not take sides
in his mind with one country or the other. There
was the greatest possible danger that the country
would be drawn into the quarrels of Europe.

In the midst of all these commotions, when the
very members of his cabinet were acting and
speaking as if they were the servants either of
England or of France, Washington maintained
his impartiality, and saw to it that the United
States was kept out of European disputes. What
was the result ? He saved the country from fear-
ful disaster ; for he was like the pilot that conducts
the ship through rapids and past dangerous reefs.
But he himself suffered incredible contumely and
reviling from the hot-headed partisans who were

PRESIDENT WASHINGTON. 241

ready to plunge the country into the dispute. " If
ever a nation," said one newspaper, " was de-
bauched by a man, the American nation has been
debauched by Washington. If ever a nation was
deceived by a man, the American nation has been
deceived by Washington. Let his conduct, then,
be an example to future ages ; let it serve to be a
warning that no man may be an idol ; let the his-
tory of the federal government instruct mankind
that the mask of patriotism may be worn to con-
ceal the foulest designs against the liberties of the
people." That is the way some people wrote about
Washington when he was president.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE FAREWELL.

WHEN Washington had completed his two
terms of office, he was unalterably fixed in his
resolution to go back to private life. The reasons
which had induced him to accept the presidency
against his inclination were no longer forcible.
The government was established. The country
was on the road to prosperity. No one man any
longer had it in his power greatly to help or greatly
to hurt the people. Moreover he was weary of
public life. He was tired of standing up and being
pelted with mud by all sorts of obscure people ; of
having his motives misconstrued ; of listening to
the endless bickerings of public men about him.
For more than twenty years he had really been at
the head of the nation. Now he meant to go back
to his farm ; but before he went, he had it in him
to say one word to his countrymen.

That Washington should write his famous
" Farewell Address to the People of the United
States " indicates how accurately he understood
his position. He was a great man, a splendid
figure in history, and he knew it. But he was too
great to be vain of his distinction. He was not

THE FAREWELL. 243

too great to use even his distinction for the ben-
efit of his country. He knew perfectly well that
any speech which he might make when he retired
from office would be listened to as almost no other
political paper was ever listened to by a people,
and he determined to gather into his " Farewell
Address" the weightiest judgment which he could
pronounce, as summing up the result of his long
study and observation of public affairs. He wrote,
of course, with a special eye to the needs of the
people who were immediately to hear and read the
address. They had dangers about them which
have since largely disappeared ; for example, we
do not especially need to-day the caution which
the men of that day needed when Washington
wrote : " A passionate attachment of one nation
for another produces a variety of evils."

Nevertheless, the address is so full of sound
political wisdom that I wish it might be read in
every public school in the land on the 22d day
of February. In it the large-minded Washington
speaks, thinking of the whole country, and pour-
ing into his words the ripe and full judgment of
a man whose one thought in his life had been to
serve his country faithfully.

The observance of Washington's birthday began
in a quiet way during Washington's lifetime. As
early as 1783, when the war was over, but before
the treaty of peace was signed, some gentlemen
met together to celebrate it, and during his presi-

244 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

dency, the day was observed by members of Con-
gress and others who paid their respects to him,
and the observance of the day became more and
more general, especially after Washington's death.
The day before he was to leave office, Wash-
ington gave a farewell dinner to the Foreign Min-
isters and their wives, and eminent public men,
including the new President, John Adams. The
company was in excellent spirits, until Washing-
ton raised his glass to wish them all good health,
after the fashion of those days. He smiled and
said : " Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last time
I shall drink your health as a public man ; I do it
with sincerity, wishing you all possible happiness."
Perhaps he was thinking at the moment of his
own happiness in going back to private life ; but
it suddenly rushed over the minds of those present
what such a toast meant, and all mirth was gone.
The next day he attended the ceremonies of the
inauguration of John Adams. As he moved toward
the door to retire, there was a rush of the people
toward him. They cheered and cheered as he
passed into the street. He answered, smiling and
waving his hat, his gray hairs blown by the wind.
The people followed him to the door of his house.
He turned, as he entered, and looked on them.
Now it was his place to feel the pain of parting.
After all, he was going away from those busy
haunts where he was sure to see men who honored
and loved him. Tears stood in his eyes ; his face

THE FAREWELL. 245

was pale and grave ; he raised his hand, but he
could not trust himself to speak.

He was once more at Mount Vernon, in the
quiet of his home, and again the days went by in
that regular routine which suited him. Here is a
letter which he wrote to James McHenry, the
secretary of war : —

" I am indebted to you for several unacknowledged
letters ; but never mind that ; go on as if you had an-
swers. You are at the source of information, and can
find many things to relate ; while I have nothing to say
that could either inform or amuse a secretary of war
in Philadelphia. I might tell him that I begin my
diurnal course with the sun ; that, if my hirelings are
not in their places at that time I send them messages of
sorrow for their indisposition ; that, having put these
wheels in motion, I examine the state of things further ;
that, the more they are probed, the deeper I find the
wounds which my buildings have sustained by an ab-
sence and neglect of eight years ; that, by the time I
have accomplished these matters, breakfast (a little after
seven o'clock, about the time, I presume, you are taking
leave of Mrs. McHenry) is ready ; that, tbis being over,
I mount my horse and ride round my farms, which em-
ploys me until it is time to dress for dinner, at which
I rarely miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say,
out of respect for me. Pray, would not the word curi-
osity answer as well ? And how different this from
having a few social friends at a cheerful board ! The
usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea, bring me

246 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

within the dawn of candle light ; previous to which, if
not prevented by company, I resolve that, as soon as
the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great
luminary, I will retire to my writing-table and acknowl-
edge the letters I have received ; but when the lights
are brought, I feel tired and disinclined to engage in
this work, conceiving that the next night will do as well.
The next night comes, and with it the same causes for
postponement, and so on. This will account for your
letter remaining so long unacknowledged ; and, having
given you the history of a day, it will serve for a year,
and I am persuaded you will not require a second edi-
tion of it. But it may strike you that in this detail no
mention is made of any portion of time allotted for
reading. The remark would be just, for I have not
looked into a book since I came home ; nor shall I be
able to do it until I have discharged my workmen,
probably not before the nights grow longer, when pos-
sibly I may be looking in Doomsday Book. At present
I shall only add that I am always and affectionately
yours."

But the time came when a letter to the secre-
tary of war was not a piece of pleasantry. There
was imminent danger of war with France ; Con-
gress issued an order to raise an army, and Presi-
dent John Adams immediately nominated George
Washington as commander-in-chief. The Senate
promptly confirmed the nomination, and Washing-
ton accepted on two conditions : that the principal
officers should be such as he approved, and that
he should not be called into tbe field till the army

THE FAREWELL, 247

required his presence. He did not think there
would be war, but he believed the best way to
prevent it was to show that the people were ready
for it.

It was in March, 1797, that Washington left
Philadelphia for Mount Vernon ; in July, 1798,
he was appointed commander-in-chief. He con-
ducted most of his business by letter, though he
spent a month in Philadelphia. He took up again
the burden he had laid down, quietly, readily,
since it was necessary, and without complaint ; but
he had not very long to bear it.

On December 12, 1799, he had been riding over
his farms as usual, but a rain and sleet storm came
up, and he returned to the house chilled through
by the exposure. The next day was still stormy,
and he kept indoors ; but he had taken cold and
suffered from a sore throat. He passed the even-
ing with his family, however, read the papers, and
talked cheerfully. In the night he had an attack-
of ague, and on the next morning, which was
Saturday, the 14th, he breathed with difficulty, and
messengers were sent for one doctor after another.
He suffered acutely, but did not complain. To-
ward evening he said to Dr. Craik : " I die hard,
but I am not afraid to die. I believed from my
first attack that 1 should not survive it. My breath
cannot last long." He said little more, only
thanked his attendants for their kindness, and
bade them give themselves no further trouble, —

248 GEORGE WASHINGTON.

simply to let him die in quietness. Between ten
and eleven o'clock that night he died.

Chief Justice Marshall, when the news reached
Congress, said a few simple words in the House
of Representatives, and asked that a committee
be appointed in conjunction with a committee of
the Senate " to consider on the most suitable
manner of paying honor to the memory of the
man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the
hearts of his fellow-citizens ; " but no manner has
been found more suitable than the study of that
life which is the most priceless gift to America.

THE

Library for Poimg people.

MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
have begun, under the above title, a series of
books designed especially for boys and girls who are
laying the foundation of private libraries. The books
in this series will not be ephemeral publications, to
be read hastily and quickly forgotten ; both the
authors and the subjects treated indicate that they
will be books to last.

The great subjects of History, Biography, Mechan-
ics, Travel, Natural History, Adventure, and kindred
themes will form the principal portion of the library.
The authors engaged are for the most part writers
who already have won attention, but the publishers
propose to give a hospitable reception to all who
may have something worth saying to the young, and
the power to say it in good English and in an attrac-
tive manner. The books in this Library are intended
particularly for young people, but they will not be
written in what has been well called the Childese
dialect.

Fiction will not be excluded, but it will not form
the main feature of the Library. The publishers do
not propose to use fiction as a preferable form when
information is to be given ; they believe that the
young are to be interested in any honest, clear, and
straightforward presentation of interesting facts, and

do not need instruction to be like a sugar-coated pill.
At the same time they hold themselves free to use
a story whenever they have one to offer which they
think will stand the test of time ; for they wish to
make a Library which its owners will not outgrow.

The books will be illustrated whenever the subject
treated needs illustration ; history and travel will be
accompanied by maps ; history and biography by
portraits ; but the aim will be to make the accom-
paniments to the text real additions.

The publishers hope to have the active coopera-
tion of parents, teachers, superintendents, and all
who are interested in the formation of good taste
in reading among young people.

The books will be uniform in size, containing from
200 to 250 pages each, will be strongly and attrac-
tively bound in cloth, and sold at the price of 75 cents
a volume. The first four numbers are as follows :

1. The "War for Independence. By JOHN FISKE.

2. George Washington; an Historical Biography.

By HORACE E. SCUDDER.

3. Birds through an Opera-Glass. By FLORENCE

A. MERRIAM.

4. Up and Down the Brooks. By MARY E. BAM-

FORD.

HOUtfHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.

BOSTON, May, 1889.

UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

A 001 442 045 9